A year after their debut, Rotting Christ changed label — from French Osmose to Athens-based Unisound — and recorded “Non Serviam”, which was released on October 10, 1994. The title is Latin, “I will not serve”, the phrase attributed to Lucifer when he refused to serve God.
Country: Greece
Genre: Black Metal with doom passages
For fans of: Varathron, Necromantia, Thou Art Lord
The recording took place in September and October 1994 at Storm Studio in Athens, the studio the band had taken over from George Osmak and through which other Greek acts also passed. Across the nine tracks the sound becomes slower and heavier: blast beats grow scarce, mid-tempo songs with doom passages and plenty of melody dominate, such as “Wolfera the Chacal” and “Morality of a Dark Age”. The music is credited to Necromayhem, the lyrics to Mutilator, while Magus Wampyr Daoloth played the keyboards and was at the same time the recording engineer.
At the time the album had no commercial reach — the Greek scene was small and Unisound did not have Osmose’s distribution — but it earned its place over the years. In 2006 it was reissued in the US by The End Records with bonus live videos, in 2022 Season of Mist put it out again as a digipak with a 20-page booklet, while the band’s 20th anniversary show in Athens, on December 8, 2007, was released as “Non Serviam – A 20 Year Apocryphal Story”.
Our take
This is where Rotting Christ stopped playing fast because they could and started writing melodies. The title track stayed a fixture in their live sets for decades, and that is no coincidence.
See also
23 Greek Black Metal gems · Macabre Omen – Gods of War · Rotting Christ – Tribute · Rotting Christ – Thy Mighty Contract · Rotting Christ – Triarchy of the Lost Lovers
