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Rotting Christ are one of the pillars of Greek black metal and a band I am just getting around to checking out though I've known about them for some time. Their debut album, Thy Mighty Contract, was released in 1993 after several demos and experimentation with different styles. The one they settled on features the kind of dark atmospheres and spiteful rasping vocals you would expect from black metal, but also several elements that may not have been so common. Rotting Christ employed simple yet melodic keyboards to emphasize the unsettling nature of their music. The guitars relied less heavily on tremolo picking and the drums were not as blasty as many of their contemporaries, resulting in a less harsh sound that was still unmistakably black metal. I found myself enjoying Thy Mighty Contract, especially tracks like "Exiled Archangels," because it wasn't exactly what I was expecting from second-wave black metal, a sound I am admittedly not well versed in. I still feel the anger and bile but in a slightly less caustic way.

If you like ultra-raw Scandinavian black metal, I can understand how Rotting Christ's melodic and even gothic spin might not click. If, on the flip side, you are like me and find the cacophony difficult to appreciate yet still want to explore black metal, this album might be a good place for you to start.