Rot Prophet

Quick, what’s the first thing you think of when you hear Switzerland? Perhaps their neutrality - their non-involvement in wars. Perhaps it’s high quality chocolate or rolling pastoral landscapes. Whatever it may be, I doubt your mind went to bestial fucking war metal, but here we are. Rotten Prophet is a grimy slab of unrelenting war metal, complete with a bestial ululating vocal performance, hammer-to-the-face riffage and unrelenting drumming.

War metal is something I love in theory, but more often than not I find the bands put style over substance. For every Archgoat, there’s a thousand bands that play very fast and aggressively but don’t actually have the killer riffs to back it up. Eggs of Gomorrh put their money where their mouth is and jackhammer the listener with an onslaught of riffs that tow the line between black metal and brutal death metal. For something ostensibly based in black metal, this is just preposterously brutal. Rot Prophet isn’t really much for lead guitar, but we have some braying leads in “Elation Devout” and what sounds like a metal solo having a seizure on “Leperverted”. The drumming here, while mixed a bit lower than I would have liked, is absolutely savage. GOATPERV (yes, that’s what he goes by) absolutely nails it with the unrelenting hammer blasts.

“Atmospheric” is pretty much the last word I’d use to describe Eggs of Gomorrh, but all the insane riffs and hammer blasts on Rot Prophet kind of bleed together into this filthy and depraved atmosphere. The album sounds like the soundtrack to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The vocals add to this hellish atmosphere. They’re definitely more on the brutal death metal side of things, being a particularly guttural growl. You know the original cover for Demilich’s Nespithe? The vocals sound like you’ve just been transported to hell and those weird creatures are making those noises as they make unwanted sexual advances on you.

Eggs of Gomorrh prove that war metal is alive and as bestial as ever with Rot Prophet. Their debut is a raw slab of hellish metal festering with the filth of the dark underbelly of the imagination. Eggs of Gomorrh add no frills and take no prisoners. Rot Prophet is a devastating first assault.