Band:	Rotting Christ
Album:	Khronos
Style:	Black metal, Gothic metal
Release date:	August 29, 2000
A review by:	KwonVerge

01. Thou Art Blind
02. If It Ends Tomorrow
03. My Sacred Path
04. Aeternatus
05. Art Of Sin
06. Lucifer Over London [Current 93 cover]
07. Law Of The Serpent
08. You Are I
09. Khronos
10. Fateless
11. Time Stand Still
12. Glory Of Sadness

During 2000 Rotting Christ entered the studio to record "Khronos", one of the darkest albums of this wonderful band, produced by Necromayhem (Sakis Tolis) and Peter Tagtgren at his Abyss Studios in Sweden. "Khronos" is a very complex and various-sounding album since Rotting Christ flirt with many soundscapes that seem to be different, yet they succeed in harmonizing them wonderfully together. The black metal feeling of their first cult releases is present along with the evil aesthetic of those early years of the band, the heavy metal structure of some compositions refers to their previous releases, "A Dead Poem" and "Sleep of the Angels", but sounding way darker and in the air you can sense several influences of the dark wave scene of the 80s. The darkness that this album exudes is quite obvious even by a single stare at its cover (made by Septic Flesh's Spiros Antoniou [a.k.a. Seth]) where lies the beauty of the defiled crucified Christ, picture of what the name of the band means, a portrait of abysmal beauty, Christ in decomposition, Rotting Christ?

Shadows start to dance macabre with the opening track of "Khronos", "Thou Art Blind", an abysmal black metal composition with wonderful guitar work and nocturnal synth-born melodies accompanying Necromayhem's eerie interpretation. The album continues with "If It Ends Tomorrow", a melodically aggressive song filled with an intense sense of melancholy evoked by the razorblade guitar riffing and the poetically written sorrowful lyrics. Darkness keeps on lurking in the dreary catacombs with "My Sacred Path", filled with a dark aesthetic throughout its whole duration and wonderful and inspired guitar ideas.

The album flows in a raging way with "Aeternatus" bringing forth memories of the glorious past through a nowadays' prism, aggressive and at the same time melodic with each of the five members of the band standing on the edges of the pentagram pouring themselves into darkness. "Art Of Sin" that follows is an utterly dark composition with beautiful-sounding melodic guitar riffing and dark-wave-approaching distorted vocals leading slowly to "Lucifer Over London" with Rotting Christ paying tribute to the unique apocalyptic folk/neofolk band Current 93 and their mastermind David Tibet; personally I prefer the original paranoiac lengthy neoflok version with Tibet's unusual descriptive voice, but I must admit that Rotting Christ did a wonderful work and made "Lucifer Over London" sound as if it was one of their songs.

The eerie voices and nocturnal tempting synth-born melodies of the instrumental "Law Of The Serpent" that follows lead to "You Are I", a fine piece of heavy metal guitar riffing and aggressive vocals with the imposing rhythm section and some FX lending volume to the song. The title track "Khronos" follows and it is a monumental song filled with awesome guitar work, obscure and devout keyboard melodies and Necromayhem's interpretation completing the greatness of this composition. In the same motive as "You Are I" follows "Fateless", a great song with utterly inspired guitar riffing and a strange melody floating in the air through the whole duration of the song with Necromayhem except for his howls showing a more melodic option of his voice at times.

A composition of brilliant guitar work continues the album, "Time Stands Still", to slowly reach the end of "Khronos" with "Glory Of Sadness", ending the album in absolute greatness evoking an intense feeling of sadness in the air through the inspired guitar riffing and Necromayhem's ecstatic and expressive interpretation, reaching a moment of emotional tranquility to continue in utter melodic aggression (also follows a hidden track moving in ambient/industrial soundscapes with an intense mystic feeling).

Embrace the darkness that "Khronos" evokes, see through the eyes of a rotting Christ?