Rotting Christ: HELLenic Black Metal Rocks Psycho Las Vegas
You know that feeling you get after eating a remarkably savory meal at a restaurant and the waiter asks if you’d like dessert and, after thinking about it for a few seconds, you say “No, thank you” because you want to keep the taste of that remarkably savory meal you just ate in your mouth?
That was me on the final day of Psycho Las Vegas after Mercyful Fate closed out the festival on the main stage. Their 1984 album “Don’t Break the Oath” rocked my world as a teenager just venturing into the budding death/thrash metal scene. And now, 35+ years after listening (with eyes wide and mouth agape the whole time) to “Desecration of Souls” on NYU’s Hellhole radio program, I had finally seen Mercyful Fate live.
They were the “remarkably savory meal”. But they weren’t the last offering of the night…
Mercyful Fate: Psycho Las Vegas
So, was I gonna risk losing that wonderful taste in my mouth (and soul!) by watching some Greek(!?) band I’d never heard of called Rotting Christ(!?) playing a 1am(!?) set at Resort World’s poolside stage? Uh, no.
But urged on by my lil brother Ruben (who helped arrange for me to be there with a photographer’s pass around my neck), that’s exactly where I found myself at 1am on the festival’s final day. Watching the festival’s final act. Some band called Rotting Christ.
And guess what? You know that volcanic eruption of around 1,600 B.C.E. off the island of Santorini that wiped out all the inhabitants and covered the whole island with ash and pumice? That’s pretty much what Rotting Christ did to Psycho Las Vegas.
Yeah, I’d never heard of them but I sure as shit am a fan now. Made me very grateful that my lil brother is a bit more of a night owl than I am. In short, they were akin to a delicious “galaktoboureko” (a classic Greek dessert made with phyllo and custard filling) served after an amazing meal of wood oven-fired prime steak and a side of Greek lemon potatoes.
Albeit the aforementioned galaktoboureko was drizzled in racoon blood and overrun with maggots. Yet still delicious.
Rotting Christ
Rotting Christ is a Greek black metal band formed in 1987. They are noted for being one of the first black metal bands within this region, as well as a premier act within the European underground metal scene. Their 1989 demo, “Satanas Tedeum”, presented a crossover between black metal and grindcore. In 1991, the band released “Passage to Arcturo”, their breakthrough EP.
Sakis Tolis: Vocals, Guitar
The band has seen numerous line-up changes in their 30+ years in the black metal genre, but the permanent line-up consists of brothers Sakis Tolis (vocals and guitar) and Themis Tolis (drums). “I thought we’d have some good times and then I would probably ‘straighten up, do what most people do”, said Sakis in a 2018 interview with Greek News Agenda. “But in the end I never did straighten up, I stayed on my path.”
Themis Tolis: Drums
The band has also faced controversy over the years due to their name. During the 2000 Republican presidential primaries, evangelical Christian candidate Gary Bauer famously called Rotting Christ an anti-Catholic “homosexual music group” because of their name. Five years later, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine — also a born-again Christian(!?) — booted them off two metal festivals in Greece over similar concerns.
Kostas Cheliotis: Bass
In 2016, they performed under the name Χ Ξ Σ (666 in English translations) in South Africa due to protests from religious groups and in 2018 founding members Sakis and Themis Tolis were arrested by Georgian authorities upon arriving in Tbilisi under suspicion of terrorism due to their band name.
Kostas Foukarakis: Guitars
Despite these controversies, Rotting Christ has released thirteen full-length albums since their breakthrough EP, with their 2018 effort, “The Heretics”, being named one of the 50 best metal albums of 2019 by Loudwire (take that, Gary Bauer!).
Catch them at a city or music festival near you (and don’t say I didn’t warn you!)
