Rotting Christ
Aealo

“Aealo” is the tenth studio album by Rotting Christ, released in 2010. Three years earlier, the band delighted us with the gem “Theogonia”, renewing their sound and bringing a fresh breeze to Greece. Obviously, “Aealo” partially retraces the path of its illustrious predecessor, but it ends up taking a decidedly different route.

First of all, it is right to announce that this album is a concept revolving around the thoughts of a warrior on a battlefield. It is a direct album, less mystical and dark than the previous record (and all the other albums of the band), with the frontman Sakis taking the reins of this devastating phalanx called Rotting Christ.

Black Metal tends to fade to give ample space to melodies and mid-tempos; this time RC focused more than ever on epic atmospheres. You will hardly listen to “Aealo” without being overwhelmed by its power, which is the same as the Battle of Thermopylae narrated in the film “300”. One of the key words of “Aealo” is hence “epicness”, a sensation that reigns supreme on this platter, aided by the new funeral choirs, composed of female voices, present in all tracks, and Sakis' guitar that expertly guides his companions in a new musical experience.

It is a very cohesive album that does not contain great novelties or twists, yet we have more violent, hard, and Black Metal pieces as there are others less intense but perhaps richer in melody. In the first case, we have the good “Fire, Death and Fear” and especially “Santa Muerte”. The latter is one of the best songs on the album, extremely violent yet charged with pathos, worthy of the Rotting Christ brand, and WOULD BE the ideal closure of the album.

I say “would be” because the eleventh and last track is “Orders from the Dead”, a cover of Diamanda Galas. Personally, I found this track absolutely out of place; Diamanda's voice, besides not pleasing me, conveys sensations foreign to an album like “Aealo”, although at least in the second part of the song, when the band supportively accompanies Galas, the result is decent.

Among the less properly Black Metal songs, it is impossible not to mention “Demonon Vrosis” (“The Feast of Demons”), a delightful piece in which our hoplite speaks of his slavery and dependence on battle, the protagonist of this piece is his hunger for blood. The verses are loaded with pathos, and Sakis' guitar intones a truly perfect melody, besides the fact that the marriage between lyrics and music is, in this case, accomplished as never before. Worth mentioning are certainly the compelling “Noctis Era” and the opener and title track “Aealo”.

It is not a flawless album: besides the mentioned “Orders from the Dead”, in the second part of the album, the tracks flow more quickly, with good tracks but without too many truly exciting moments, - at least until the moment of “Santa Muerte”. Furthermore, there is a track just over a minute long that is entirely skippable, consisting only of the choir, which is nonetheless present in all the other songs.

But anyway, this effort by Rotting is another confirmation of the group's golden period, which doesn't reach the heights of the previous masterpiece but can undoubtedly boast of being its worthy successor. It is an album with which Rotting Christ have once again changed face without losing their identity, making them a unique band in the global scene.