The Rotting Christ Books. Plural.

How many books about Rotting Christ need to exist in this world? Well, at least two, so far, but this Rotting Christ fan would gladly take more, though after burning through these two I'm not sure what else is left to be unearthed about this classic Greek band.

The first book, Non Serviam, The Official Story of Rotting Christ, by band main man Sakis Tolis and British heavy metal scribe Dayal Patterson, is by far the most informative and detailed account of the bands history. I mean, no blackened stones go unturned here. The second book, Under Our Black Cult is more of a companion piece to Non Serviam, or a Cliff's Notes of the bands earlier years. The book comes with five CDs chronicling all the bands earliest releases up through their sophomore release, Non Serviam. It's a musical tour through their early grindcore days and their ushering in of black metal to Greece, featuring their undoubtedly classic, and genre crucial debut release Thy Mighty Contract. The book is best experienced while listening to the songs and checking out all the beautiful, large printed photos of the band and early memorabilia from this time period of the band's history.

Straight up, I'm a Rotting Christ mark and projects like this will undoubtedly get my attention and admiration, but there's a shit ton of musical relevance and history with Rotting Christ and the whole Greek metal scene from the late 80's to early 90's. What I find endlessly fascinating is while Norway and Scandinavia were getting all the hype during the burgeoning second wave of black metal, bands from all over the world were exploring similar realms of extremity within their own cultural surroundings. Greece clearly had Rotting Christ, as well as Varathron and Necromantia, among others. Not to be outdone by Master's Hammer out of the Czech Republic, and the masterful Sigh from Japan, all these bands were firmly making black metal but none of them sounded the same or even like the Norwegian scene and that growing swell of musical extremity is well illustrated by these two Rotting Christ tomes.

METAL MOMENT:

Thy Mighty Contract is a metal classic regardless of genre, just as a whole.