Genre: Death metal, death-doom
For fans of: Rotting Christ, Necromantia, Nightfall Septic Flesh formed in Athens in March 1990 with Spiros Antoniou (Seth) on bass and vocals, Christos Antoniou on guitar and Sotiris Vayenas on rhythm guitar and lyrics. In the intervening years the EP “Temple of the Lost Race” came out in 1991, along with demos and live appearances, until the debut arrived to close the circle: it was recorded within two months and released by the French label Holy Records, with the production credited to the band along with M. W. Daoloth of Necromantia. The album has no acoustic drums — something that changed only in 1999, on “Revolution DNA” — and its sound is slower and more atmospheric than that of its contemporaries, with heavy bass and keyboards that give an almost ritual tone. It was later reissued by Season of Mist along with the rest of the band’s first-period work, keeping its place as the point where their whole story begins. Our take It is a debut that doesn’t rush: slow tempos, heavy atmosphere and a band still searching for its sound. Everything that followed — the orchestras, the choirs, the symphonic death metal — starts from these eleven compositions. The album on YouTube:


