Rotting Christ
September 21, 2016
Regent Theater- Los Angeles, CA
America’s black metal legion gathered at the Regent Theater in Los Angeles for what was to be a glorious night for the genre of metal known as black metal. This truly evil tour package was sure to satisfy anyone and everyone within the black metal community. The tour was to feature Marduk from Sweden as the headliner with support from Rotting Christ from Greece, Carach Angren from the Netherlands, and Necronomicon from Canada. Due to visa issues, Marduk had to drop from the tour and will reschedule the tour for another time. In the meantime, the other three bands carried on as to not disappoint their American fans. The Regent Theater was packed for a Wednesday night proving that fans will come out to see their favorite bands no matter what day of the week.
Necronomicon started the show and seemed to be the lesser-known band on the bill. Many fans still showed up to check out this band and give them a chance. The band released their newest album Advent of the Human God on March 18, 2016. For such an occasion, the band started the show with I Bringer of Light from the new album. Upon first listen, you’ll see that aside from a classic black metal sound, they also have a more death metal sound to their music, almost classified as blackened death metal. From the very start, the band put on an energetic performance and fans responded well. The band continued with another new song, Crown of Thorns. With such power to their music, guitarist Rob “The Witch” and bassist Mars would regularly head-bang in unison. Being that they were the opening band, they had a rather short set. The band finished with The Time Is Now and warmed up the crowd for the rest of the bands.
Dutch ghosts Carach Angren are on their third US tour, but already are making new fans wherever they play. Quite a number of people were already fans and were simply there to see them again. Carach Angren released their newest album This Is No Fairytale in 2015. The band came out with traditional corpse paint used by black metal bands. For this tour, they recruited Jack Owen from death metal legends Deicide for live guitar duties. Carach Angren started the show with the first song from the newest album, There’s No Place Like Home. Frontman Seregor unleashed his demonic vocals into the audience and surely enough, a mosh pit ensued to go with the music. Fans of the horror genre could easily be attracted to the band with their style of horror that they add to their music. All the band members were very active on stage. Seregor would run from left to right while making grotesque faces and Ardek would head-bang in place, as well as make horrifying faces of his own. Lingering in an Imprint Haunting and Sir John were the next two songs and kept the crowd and energy going. Carach Angren recently released their newest music video for When Crows Tick on Windows and so it only seemed appropriate for them to play the song on the tour. It made for one of the best songs played by the band. Spectral Infantry Battalions is one of the band’s shorter songs, but still has a catchy tune. Seregor made good use of it by wearing his greed mask that he designed. Carach Angren continued the show with Bitte tötet mich (German for “Please Kill Me“) and Killed and Served By the Devil. The show came to an end with Bloodstains on the Captain’s Log and thanked the crowd as they left the stage for the headliner of the show.
Rotting Christ is a veteran black metal band that’s been around since the early 90’s. They are one of the longest running bands within the black metal genre. Despite the name, Rotting Christ does not consider themselves to be a satanic band. Plenty of fans were seen amongst the crowd waiting to see one of their favorite black metal bands. Rotting Christ came out and started the show with Ze Nigmar (Hebrew for “It’s Over”) from their newest Rituals album. One of the first things you’ll notice about the band is that they’re dressed in normal clothing rather than traditional black metal outfits and corpse paint. Rotting Christ‘s lyrics are written in a variety of languages aside from English. Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit, and French are some of the languages used for the band’s music while the band kept the traditional black metal sound to their music. The band members were very active on stage as they ran around making sure to use the whole stage to their advantage instead of standing in one spot the whole show. Rotting Christ showed their musicianship by playing a variety of styles in their songs. One song could sound like your typical black metal song, then the next song like Societas Satanas would be something along the lines of a thrash metal song with a faster pace. Other songs included on this hellish show were: Kata ton Demona Eautou, Elthe Kyrie, The Sign of Evil Existence, and The Forest of N’Gai. For the whole night, fans were going crazy as mosh pits could be seen and felt. The show seemed to come to an end with Noctis Era, yet fans didn’t seem ready to go home yet. After a little while, the band came back out for an encore which was Non Serviam. The fans got one last time to rage and so they did. Rotting Christ finished the show and said farewell to fans. A tour like this is guaranteed to be a fun night and fans of metal should keep an eye out for these bands as they do not disappoint whether it’s an album you’re listening to or seeing them live for yourself.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
Necronomicon
Carach Angren
Rotting Christ
