Album Review | ‘Pro Xristou’ by Rotting Christ
The Greek extreme metal legends keep the flame alive with their epic new offering
- Genre: Extreme / Black Metal
- Members: Sakis Tolis, Kostas Foukarakis, Kostas Cheliotis, Themis Tolis
- Length: 55 Minutes
- Label: Season of Mist
- Released: 2024
Grandiose Conjurations
I first became acquainted with Hellenic extreme/black metal legends Rotting Christ through their 2016 effort, Rituals, aka their twelfth studio album. A work that lived up to its name, it was a conjuration of mystic, atmospheric epic-ness, replete with melodic, often beautiful, and heroic guitars, rhythmic drums, and frontman Sakis Tolis’ captivating baritone and commanding growls — absolutely not what I was expecting from the band, especially one with such a provocative moniker.
They erred closer to the cinematic, grandiose nature of mid-career Therion or The Great Mass-era Septicflesh than anything resembling the lo-fi, nihilistic savagery of most black metal bands I knew and largely expected.
While Rituals’ themes and lyrics landed on much the same messaging as the band’s contemporaries, the choice of execution resulted in a considered, matured, and evocative approach as opposed to the scathing, openly derivative, and hostile tactics wielded by many of their genre-mates.
This was music that, though undeniably opposed to the target of its subject matter, nonetheless conducted itself with the decorum of a versed debater and strengthened itself not through sophomoric defamation but by recognizing the best artistic qualities of its opponent and expertly utilizing them as a vehicle to empower its messaging — namely, the use of choirs, hymnal-like melodies, and Sakis’ solemn bellows acting as enrapturing sermons in their own right.
Powerful stuff, though I would neglect to follow up on their 2019 offering, The Heretics. I never walked backward through their discography until I acquired the greatest hits compilation Their Greatest Spells a year back — which, for the record, I enjoyed but not so much as Rituals.
So, accounting for my limited view of the band’s material, where does that leave the nearly forty-year-old band with this, their fourteenth studio album?
With the aforementioned minimal interaction, I can only assume that Pro Xristou (translated to “Before Christ” from Greek, according to their Bandcamp page) carries the torch last held by The Heretics, sundering forth yet again into epic territory befitting a cinematic experience.
Pro Xristou opens with its short but fitting title track, establishing Sakis’ winsome narrator voice before erupting into an impassioned chant while the rest of the band summons a thunderous war march to set the mood. It’s an approach and tone consistent across the album’s twelve tracks (fourteen, including the bonus cuts). Sakis wields his oratory heft while the guitars shift between fearsome black metal riffing to heroic melodies (“The Apostate,” “Saoirse”).
“Like Father, Like Son” stands out as a real highlight with the epic through-line of its main guitar; alongside Sakis’ vocals and the rest of the band, it cements the vibe that this is a hero’s journey — one of hardship but also great reward that had me roaring the chorus pretty much from jump.
Tracks like “The Sixth Day” and “The Farewell” keep things marching with more winning mainline work and sparse but effective vocals that coalesce into an infectious chorus. “La Lettera Del Diavolo” brings us our first real Rituals-branded track, opening with the impassioned intonations of a female vocalist amidst driving blast beats and aggressive riffing before shifting back into emotive melodies backed by a thrumming choir and capping off with a surprising stint of operatic vocals. “Yggdrasil” operates as its sonic twin, albeit without the female vocals. Still, both feel like mirrors of one another and hearken back to Rituals cuts like “Elthe Kyrie” or “Tou Thanatou.”
Where Pro Xristou really shines for me, though, is in the guitar work. This has some of the catchiest, driving riffs I’ve heard in 2024 that get my head banging on every listen. Partner those up with simple yet big choruses, and it’s a done deal. It’s easy to picture getting swept up into grandiose battles — fitting, considering the album’s theme revolves around stories of the last Pagan kings to stand against invading Christian armies. As such, the material comes across beefy and stalwart, beautiful and heartfelt and defiant, commanding attention from the listener as a soldier might be commanded by their king to rally forth to repel the threat of religious conversion crashing against their doors. It’s powerful stuff.
If Pro Xristou has any weakness, it could be that many of the songs exist in the same mid-tempo range, with only a few deviations into faster territory. Sonically, much of the album runs a familiar gamut. I could see some listeners losing grip with the bulk of the material, clinging to a few playlist-worthy tracks and forfeiting the rest.
For example, “Pro Xristou” and “The Apostate” are somewhat redundant as they follow a similar format and feel more like tone-setters than trueblood songs. “The Apostate” may have been a stronger opener by being a longer song, though I feel comfortable in proffering that placing “Like Father, Like Son” as the first “true” track after “Pro Xristou” would have really kicked the album off in style, with “The Apostate” either coming off the board entirely or maybe slotting into the middle somewhere to act as a sort of bridge between the more energetic pieces.
Either way, anyone looking for a grand shakeup from their previous records (or even track-to-track) will find little to entice them here, as RC seems ill-interested in stepping off their current path.
With all that said, however, Pro Xristou remains an album that I find little fault with. While Rotting Christ has never been a band I’ve felt a particular magnetism towards (Ex. — I don’t have the same urge to deep-dive their back catalogue, unlike Darkthrone), works like Rituals and now Pro Xristou stand as captivating pieces of music showcasing beauty and grandeur not often associated with the genre.
And though you could argue that perhaps the band is a bit too comfortable with their format, it hardly matters when the result slaps as hard as it does. For a band nigh-entering forty years of operations, Pro Xristou could have easily been a lukewarm reheat of stronger offerings. Instead, Sakis and Co. have assembled a trove of commanding tracks proving these Greek hellraisers have enough fuel to keep the fires blazing.
