Moonspell and Rotting Christ: A Seismic Heresy Manifesto in the Belly of Graz’s Hill (2019)
Location: Graz / Dom Im Berg / Austria
Date: Tuesday, 19.11.2019
Moonspell and Rotting Christ on a joint European tour — that’s a package you don’t miss. Two bands with unmistakable charisma and a completely singular musical identity. The Mediterranean! Portugal and Greece. Countries of fiery temperament!
Both bands booked a handful of tour stops of particular interest to extreme metal fans living in Slovenia. The first was Zagreb, the second Graz, the third Vienna. It comes down to weighing venues — their acoustics, capacity, accessibility for photography — alongside expectations of how well-organised the shows would be. Night to night, a Moonspell and Rotting Christ evening is of course a completely different story, but one thing is reliable: Austrians almost never drop the ball when it comes to organising concerts. This time was no exception. In Graz we witnessed a flawless execution of the event — a stark contrast to those who had made the trip to Zagreb the night before and were left griping about an unwelcome delay, poor sound, and even the cancellation of the Silver Dust support set.
Dom Im Berg is a venue literally dug into — or built into — the very innards of Graz’s famous hill, which is crowned by the city’s landmark castle. It boasts excellent acoustics and real capacity, packing in 800–1,000 people. A proper stage, both deep and wide, giving all three bands room to set up their full stage setups.
First up were the grotesque Swiss gothic gloomsters Silver Dust. The Swiss quartet crams gothic elements and dark rock alike into their metal, with a predictable dose of theatrical kitsch and glam. A band that lives and dies by theatrics and spectacle. Silver Dust are no newcomers and diligently pursue their vision. Musically they’re not exactly breaking new ground, but that very theatrical kitschiness could carry them to wider recognition, especially among younger, less demanding fans of heavy music. Lord Campbell is unstoppable in his stage preaching, and when he picks up his Ibanez S. Vai model, the show turns genuinely grotesque — especially during the guitar solo spot, which delivers nothing interesting, just a heap of unconvincing filler. Even so, the quartet is very professional and sticks strictly to its stage mantra. Their current album House 21, their third, is a concept record — a psychological thriller. The band gave it solid representation again, enriching the stage with a video backdrop that, in its parade of grotesque characters, deepened the concept’s message. The band has been diligently building its name. Since their formation in 2013, they’ve already done two tours with Lordi, and have also supported Eluveitie, Amon Amarth and The Deftones. The group’s frontman and chief beard-wearer Lord Campbell, the towering bassist Kurghan, the stocky and generously face-furred guitarist Tiny Pistol, and the band’s newest member as of last August — drummer Magma — handled the job with confidence and delivered an entertaining, sharp warm-up to a far more serious remainder of the evening.
Twenty years after this article’s author last caught Rotting Christ at Ljubljana’s K4, it was well past time for another encounter — even though the band plays Slovenia fairly regularly. They’re particularly fond of stopping by Tolmin’s Metaldays. Rotting Christ have always been, at their core, a blasphemous fortress defended by the Tolis brothers duo. This year they released the excellent new studio album The Heretics, on which they stubbornly stick to their self-forged recipe of Mediterranean black metal vampirism — where occult doom meets theatrical dark-mass ceremony, trafficking in the ancient faith of Hellenism that the band has always loved to hold above the rot of Catholicism. The band leaned heavily on pre-recorded backdrops of baritone-thundering male choral voices and orchestrations — which was to be expected — but the moment you lay eyes on the stone-carved figure of Sakis Tolis, you freeze like a magnet. Hypnotized by the creation of a unique atmosphere, a unique chemistry! The charisma of this vocalist and bandleader is simply incredible! An untamed temperament charged with passion, unleashed through a venomously jagged avalanche of devastating phrasing — yet at the same time sensitively crossed with supreme musicianship, the vivid embodiment of Mediterranean black metal, if not outright its founding father.
The quartet is extraordinarily tight — remarkable given that both new members, guitarist Giannis Kalamatas and bassist Kostas Heliotis, only joined the Tolis brothers’ crew this year. The band even managed to lift the notoriously reserved Austrian crowd, who delivered roaring responses every time Sakis demanded it of them. The crowd was particularly fired up by the anthemic cover of Thou Art Lord’s Societas Satans, whose piercing chorus slotted perfectly into the rest of the set. The band plays as if in a trance, and that’s exactly how it felt — a cataclysmic, ruinous atmosphere of boundless darkness, rage, occultism, and godless flogging. The band didn’t let up throughout the show. On the contrary — in terms of performance, they kept cranking the theatrical atmosphere and its stamp higher and higher throughout. The only minor gripe one might have is that from Rotting Christ’s back catalogue they played just three tracks — the cult classic The Forest Of N’Gai from the ancient EP Passage To Arcturo (1991), the Triarchy Of the Lost Lovers (1996) classic King Of a Stellar War, and, as expected, their signature anthem of blasphemous defiance Non Serviam, which closed a solid hour-long show. The predominantly static Sakis was well complemented in terms of stage energy by the young “gymnasts” — the sharply tuned and highly engaged new members already mentioned, who nimbly filled every inch of their corner of the stage. Rotting Christ are an institution — blasphemously unhinged on stage, sweeping the crowd up in their singular theatre and carrying them off into their own unique world of black metal mercilessness. Oh, and yes — excellent sound. Wherever you were standing. The leads and the jangling bass were all audible, alongside Sakis’s domineering roar and the earth-shatteringly seismic kicks of his brother Themis.
Right then! Everything was set for the arrival of the evening’s headliners, Portugal’s Moonspell. The stage backdrop mirrored the cover of the new album 1755, built around the concept of the devastating earthquake that struck Lisbon that year. Ruins in the background, a pair of giant overturned crosses on either side! First to step onto the stage was, of course, the central figure of the Moonspell theatre — the one without whom you simply cannot imagine the band. The imposing vocalist Fernandno Ribeiro. Dressed in the costume of an eighteenth-century townsman with a flickering lantern in hand, the opening kicked off with the anthemic En Nome Do Medo, an Alpha Noir track specially rearranged for 1755. It was immediately clear that Moonspell’s show would likewise be accompanied at times by pre-recorded choral backdrops and additional orchestrations. The first three songs of the opening were dedicated to presenting 1755, considered one of the most ambitious works of the band’s entire career. On it, Moonspell no longer surprise exactly, but it remains one of the most complex musical works these fine Portuguese have ever created. A solid opener, definitely — including the phenomenally painted (sadomasochistic) beaked mask that Ribeiro donned for the album’s title track, a replica of the masks worn by healers three hundred years ago! But the show leapt to a significantly higher level when the band dived straight into their second studio album Irreligious and fired off two crushing gothic gloom anthems back to back — Opium and Awake! Ribeiro reigned supreme once again with his towering charisma. He left no one short-changed. He emotionally exploded into his most primal elements once again, with the crowd eating out of his hand throughout the show! The crew navigated the middle section of the concert brilliantly, through the classic Night Eternal, the supremely infectious and especially anthemic Extinct-era track Breath (Until We Are No More), with Moonspell deepening their gothic charisma further with the Antidote-era track Everything Invaded.
The band remains razor-sharp in performance! Perfectly locked in, battle-hardened and seasoned! They operate like an impenetrable stage entity, wielding extraordinary performative cohesion! Once again, excellent acoustics and sound characteristics reigned in the room, with everything perfectly audible. Every detail and contrast. Ribeiro worked the room like a true little devil, a genuine phantom — dispensing a few hypnotic, curse-laden glances to some of the ladies who were “melting” right at the front during the show.
During the Irreligious classic Mephisto, even the handful of fans who had made the trip from Portugal — watching from the far right (as seen from the stage) — finally completely lost it. When the band, after a longer intro speech from Fernando, launched into the classic Vampiria, it was clear the show was slowly tipping toward its finale. A well-attended Dom In Berg united with the band one final time as Moonspell charged into the ferocious Alma Mater, which thus closed a (far too short) show by the outstanding Moonspell. An hour and fifteen minutes all in with the encore — which delivered the excellent new, darkly epic and ruinous Todos os santos (translated: “all the saints”) — and then what followed? Just one single track was missing. Fool Moon Madness, another Irreligious classic, without which a Moonspell show is simply not what it should be.
Moonspell, alongside a top-class performance, delivered as expected an adapted setlist which, within the “trimmed” 75 minutes, had to focus on the new album while also satisfying the fans with a dose of classics from their first two albums. Had they played at least an hour and a half, we’d surely have got another poison dart or two from the Night Eternal, Alpha Noir or The Butterfly Effect, Sin/Pecado and Darkness And Hope eras — all of which were completely absent from the setlist this time around!
What more can you say at the end of such a perfect evening? The Rotting Christ and Moonspell concert package, warmed up by a razor-sharp Silver Dust, proved that evening to be a sinfully worthwhile visit to Graz’s Dom Im Berg. Simple as that. The charisma of these two great Mediterranean extreme metal bands is so immense and indelible that the theatrical atmosphere they conjure through their performances is that sweet opium that seduces you, hypnotizes you, and leads you through an adventure beyond the real world — intensified feelings that give you goosebumps more than once, and that you never, ever want to end!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Boštjan Kepic
SILVER DUST: 1. Libera Me 2. The Unknown Soldier 3. Shame On You 3. The Age of Decadence 4. Forever 5. Duo Orgue/Guitare 6. La La La La 7. The Calling 8. The Judgement Day 10. Ave Satani
ROTTING CHRIST: 01. 666 02. dub-sag-ta-ke 03. Fire, God and Fear 04. Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy 05. Apage Satana 06. Dies Irae 07. The Forest of N’Gai 08. Societas Satanas 09. King of a Stellar War 10. In Yumen-Xibalba 11. Grandis Spiritus Diavolos 12. Non Serviam
MOONSPELL: 01. Em Nome Do Medo 02. 1755 03. In Tremor Dei 04. Opium 05. Awake! 06. Night Eternal 07. Breathe (Until We Are No More) 08. Everything Invaded 09. Evento 10. Mephisto 11. Vampiria 12. Alma Mater /dodatek/ 13. Todos os santos 14. Full Moon Madness
