The only female vocals performed by Diamanda are the vocals on Orders from the Dead. The choir sections were performed by the Pleiades female choir. AEALO is a weird album.... It's good, but it sounds more like a collection of good songs than a flowing album.

I disagree. All the tracks together sound like one long marching anthem to me. Even the galas cover sounds in place. And considering we've been listening to a whole album full of the Pleiades vocals, so does their instrumental. I'll agree that somehow, for some reason, the whole thing together just doesnt click 100% and I can't get to the bottom of it, but i still think its an excellent album and I applaud the band for experimenting so far with their style.

Listened to this track earlier today again. I swear it gets even more amazing every time I hear it.

My only fear is that the rest of the album won't be able to live up to this. I hope I'm wrong. I am still very, very keen to hear the rest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klg58BdnIgk

In Yumen/Xibalba is up in an official context now, and the artwork accompanying the video is an elaboration of the art posted in this thread. I hope the album artwork is closer that which accompanies the video - there's a little more going on.

New track sounds very cool.

I love how every new Rotting Christ album manages to sound like a natural evolution from the last, and yet simultaneously manages to bring something new to the table. I can hear shades of both Aealo and Thegonia here, and yet it also sounds unique and distinct in its own right. Very excited to hear the full album.

It's so goddamn incredible. That one riff, they just let it breath and explode. oh, so good.

I just realized that the opening section of the new song reminds me a lot of Triptykon. Lots of doom, and a huge build-up based on that one colossal guitar line being repeated.

Totally. It's great, isn't it?

My thoughts exactly when first listening.

As for the song as a whole, there's no doubt this is a fantastic opener for the album. They basically took one riff and expanded the shit out of it across the span of 6 minutes without sounding stale or tired. One can only hope the rest of the album follows suit. Been blasting Non Serviam all week, stoked for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 8uwOs2HH8I

Interview kicks in at 1:00. I'm super stoked for this to get out now!

Yep, the album cover seems to be much more interesting in this video. I like it.

That's exactly what I wanted to point out.

The artwork could always get better. They could always collaborate with Seth

A lyric video of In Yumen - Xibalba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdasUo-RDJA

Yeah new song is awesome.

I downloaded a high quality version of it off the Season of Mist website. Sounds good man.

So one of the first reviews of the album is out. It's on Metal Sucks, so...it depends how seriously you'd want to take this.
http://www.metalsucks.net/2013/01/17/je ... ytoy-good/

Not sure how much I like this. I thought Aealo was absolute horse shit. This song doesn't even have the Theogonia sound until the very end and only for like...20 seconds. Guess it might be too much to ask for another Theogonia. I'll leave my complete judgement for when the album leaks, but for now it's sounding like sterile over produced garbage. If this doesn't go over well for me, I guess 9 solid to perfect albums is about as much as one can ask for.

Edit: Why can't he just do his lyrics in Greek? Greek is a great language and his English leaves...a lot to be desired.

Opinions being opinions, you may wanna give Aealo another chance someday. I didn't like it as much as Theogonia at first but it's a grower. The chuggy-sounding guitar parts are initially a turn off but there is a lot of great material on the album.

Scratching my head over this one. It's even written in Cyrillic on the tracklist.

Agree with those not liking the cover, usually they have artwork I like, but yeah, not this time.

Have high hopes for this, I like Rotting Christ and they rarely disappoint me. Here is hoping this release is better than the artwork.

I never really like AEALO myself but this song sounds better then any song off that album (save for maybe dub-saĝ-ta-ke) and if most of this new album has a similar sound to those songs then I might be quite happy with it.

Wait, what? I can understand your dislike for AEALO, but I thought dub-sag-ta-ke was the weakest on there by far! They play it live very often too...am I not getting something?

I'm reading the first paragraph of that MetalSucks review and wondering whether to take the rest seriously.
EDIT: Okay I take that back, but I'm still wondering how reviewers have their hands on promo copies this early.

Who reads and takes Metalsucks seriously anyway?

Im not saying its the best on the album but this song really stood out to me cause of how great the drumming starts off with a nice solo in the middle that reminds me of Enuma Elish. Its a personal opinion really but I can understand if the song tends to get boring from hearing it live too often.

The same people who say "who takes Metal Archives seriously anyway?"

In my opinion Aealo was an attempt to repeat the success of Theogonia. The songs were altered just as much but the general feeling of it was that it was a continuation of the previous album.

According to Sakis in a private conversation, this album has a lot of surprises, even bigger than the one I mentioned to him, the difference in songs and sound going from Non Serviam to Triarchy of the Lost Lovers.

OzzyApu:
I wouldn't pay to much attention to them.

This is strange, this album shouldn't be available for review yet...

Well these websites get an advanced copy of the album or perhaps, the record label had a listening party. Anyway, I don't take metalsucks seriously, hence my post. They're a very hip website who think they know-it-all when in actuality they just manage to scratch the surface of metal news.

I've given Aealo plenty of chances. I couldn't find anything I liked about it. From the excessive female wailing vocals, to the '300' esque chants, to the half-assed riffs. The only reason I'm giving this new album the time of day is because I've convinced myself of a pipe-dream that they might return to an older sound.



I hope you are right.

If anyone wants a Rotting Christ/Varathron return to roots album, listen to Varathron's Stygian Forces of Scorn. That's how you return to your roots while being innovative and relevant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkNIBIEVPqc

You couldn't say it better. That album is a huge hellenic experience, on par with the early 90's classics. I recommend this song tho, which is the more epic/hellenic IMO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmwlXUnh2Eo

I think Rotting Christ already managed to stay relevant, modern and at the same time evoke the ancient pride of Greece with Theogonia. This looks like it'll be as good as that album.

I can't believe no one likes the artwork. I like it - it's different from most album covers.

You can't believe it? You can't believe that no one likes trinkets 'shopped over blackness with the album title pasted over? With no band logo? This cover art reeks of laziness, and even if it isn't the full-one (some cloth arts show some more detail), it's still a very lazy attempt at giving a face to the music. This band is worth more than that, and they know it.

To the knowledge of one of the band members there haven't been sending out advance copies of this.

Full album samples up:
http://www.amazon.de/Do-What-Thou-Wilt/ ... 814&sr=8-7

They're too short to form an opinion. Some sound like Aealo, some like Theogonia and some like Genesis-Sanctus Diavolos. Am sure this will slay.

the album sounds pretty beastly so far

oh. my.

Lovely.

I am anticipating this release to be up par with albums such as Theogonia and Sanctus Diavolos. In other words: Godly!

Loved every single bit of the samples, especially the Rusalka one, I got goosebumps while listening to it.

I enjoyed hearing the title-track in full on the blabbermouth page, so that made me want to hear the samples. It is starting to sound same-y, but for now that's just fine. The track I want to hear the most is actually the bonus one, "Welcome to Hel". Probably because it was just the solo section, but it reminded me a lot of Running Wild.

Here's a link to the title track:

http://www.terrorizer.com/2013/01/25/ro ... new-track/

Hnnnnnnnng, fuck that was brilliant.