Thou Art Lord: The Cult of the Horned One (1993)

As might be guessed from the name of the album, this is no Christian band like those on the compilation from Sunday's subject.  This is a return to the Hellenic black metal scene that I was talking about with the series on Varathron last week.  And since this is another box set, readers will likely grow sick of reading about Thou Art Lord for the next week.

This is my first experience listening to Thou Art Lord, well with this box set anyway.  I had heard a lot about them, particularly in my forays into the Hellenic black metal scene, but had just not gotten around to checking them out.  Well here was my chance.

My first thought upon listening to this release was "Holy crap these guys sound like Rotting Christ".  The point of reference for this release was Rotting Christ's 1993 album Thy Mighty Contract and their 1994 album Non-Serviam.  Now those are two particular favorite albums of mine from the band so I was fully on board.  Thou Art Lord has the same kind of atmospheric riffing that is at once uncompromising in its aggressiveness and eerily melodic.  Filled to the brim with tremolo riffs and incendiary leads, the release would be almost perfect if it was just a bit longer.  Alas there are only three songs on this demo.  Such a shame.

I was curious though about just why this sounds SO MUCH like Rotting Christ, so I did some research on the band and facepalmed when I saw that Thou Art Lord was started as a side project between Necromantia's George Zacharopoulos under the pseudonym "Morbid" and, of course, Sakis Tolis from Rotting Christ under the pseudonym "Necromayhem".  So that's it.

This demo is terrific.  Plus, it has the added benefit, for those curious to hear why I rave so much about Rotting Christ but concerned for their everlasting soul enough to steer clear of a band with that name, of having a vaguely Christian-sounding name.  So there you go.