Thou Art Lord: DV8 (2002)

It was six years between releases for Thou Art Lord.  I do not believe they broke up or anything, but at some point the band was less of a priority for the members.  I will admit to being a little skeptical about how this release would sound given the ridiculous title.  The fear that they had gone in a gothic/industrial/nu-metal direction was high.  But I still dove in.

This one is weird.  I think that is the best way to explain it.  The band once again goes in a number of directions.  Opening track "A Chaldean Hex" sounds very much like modern-day Behemoth, which is sort of weird because not even Behemoth sounded like modern-day Behemoth in 2002.  There are of course other songs that carry on the Hellenic sound and could have fit in well on any Rotting Christ album.  The best examples are "Crowning the Winged Skull" and "Desire, Lust and Incubus".

There are some truly weird moments as well.  The clean vocal section of "Baphomet's Meteor" sounds Marilyn Manson-esque.  "Society of the Dilletanti" has an almost groove metal stomping rhythm to the riffs.  The vocals too run the gamut between blackened shrieking to an almost death metal roar at times.  Set of Septicflesh is contributing lead vocals on this release, which explains a lot of the dynamics.  He has always been a highly gifted extreme metal singer and he is at the top of his game here.  It is not at all surprising that three members of the band contribute vocals, and yes, it is really obvious when Sakis Tolis is singing.

At this point, Thou Art Lord has truly become a super-group.  Now featuring the familiar members of Rotting Christ and Necromantia, they have added the vocal talents from Septicflesh and a widely-traveled drummer who has been in basically every Greek extreme metal band.  What results is an extremely varied, yet highly entertaining album.  I still do not think they have surpassed their debut, but this is definitely better than the last one.