Rotting Christ - The Heretics

It has been interesting seeing Rotting Christ ascend from being one of your neighborhood kvlt bands through the ranks of black metal gradually as they’ve honed their sound, and a huge part of that has come through the realization of their where their strengths lie, which are more within the slower, more liturgical side of black metal rather than the basic, traditionally speedy approach of the genre. The band had been improving gradually since AEALO, but their greatest stride forward came with 2016’s Rituals, which leaned heavily into the more meticulously produced side of the genre, incorporating choral vocals and orchestral elements to supplement the slower grooves of the crunchy guitars and thunderously pounding drums, similar to how Batushka famously did on Litourgiya. It was great to hear Rotting Christ finally sounding like they had found their place and what worked best for them on that album, and I was eager to see what kind of material they would make in the future with a more honed out niche. Well that future has arrived and The Heretics is definitely a continuation of the blueprint that Rituals started, but one that seems unsure of how to progress the sound further, so it greatly doubles down on the prevailing stylistic elements of Rituals with not much refining. And it’s not a bad album for it by any means, it just feels like a copy-and-pasted sequel.

Most of the album, pretty consistent stylistically with what characterized Rituals(if not even more dramatically theatrical), is pretty decent at least and does well to continue to make a good case for the band’s progression. The song “Vetry Zlye (Ветры Злые) ” ups the speed of the drums a bit, but maintains the open scope the band has been excelling with by way of the rising and falling tremolo picking and tasteful female backing vocals. “Heaven & Hell & Fire” makes further use of the kinds of choral chants that bolstered Rituals so well and the kinds of resonant guitar passages that let the percussion do the appropriate amount of talking when needed. I like the super ritualistic choral backing vocals over mid-paced blast beats of “Dies Irae”, and over the even slower “Hallowed Be Thy Name” and “The Voice of the Universe”, and I like how the band capture more than just the sinister tones of black metal with that and reach for more triumphant feelings through more vulnerably bombastic compositions.

There are some potholes in the album though that do drag it down a bit. “I Believe (Πιστευω)” is essentially an unnecessary non-song that just serves as monotonous blast-beat filler, and the spoken-word-laden closing track comes off rather cheesy to end the album on an unflattering note.

Overall though, The Heretics is a worthy follow-up to Rituals, but one that seems unsure of how to step off it’s predecessors wide coattails. As secure as the band are in their sound and also more experienced with it, they don’t really outdo Rituals at all. Nothing quite reaches the infectious pounding power of songs like “זה נגמר (Ze Nigmar)”, “For a Voice Like Thunder” or even “χξϛ” from Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού. There really isn’t a lot to say about this album that can’t be said about it’s predecessor other than that it’s doubled up on the main ingredients that define the two stylistically. While the band do solidify their capabilities with the style, they seem to forget to separate the compositions of the ten songs on here with unique motifs so that it doesn’t just feel like another black metal mass requium with little to remember it by aside from the overall vibe.

Rituals 2: Electric Boogaloo/10