Mark Rice's Blog: All Things Metallic

He’s done it again! For the fourth time in eight years, Sakis Tolis has topped my album-of-the-year list. He did it with his band Rotting Christ in 2016 and 2019 (with the records Rituals and The Heretics respectively), then he did it as a solo artist in 2022 (with Among the Fires of Hell), and now he’s done it again with his χ ξ ς’ project (which, like Rotting Christ, is ostensibly a Sakis solo vehicle). From start to finish...

As soon as I heard Among the Fires of Hell for the first time, I made the uncharacteristic move of announcing online that I had just heard my album of the year, a record so immaculate that its place at the top of my 2022 list was guaranteed. And here it is, at the top of my list as I said it would be. I’m not sure why Sakis chose to release this as a solo album rather than a Rotting Christ release. The moniker doesn’t matter, though – it’s the mu...

My favourite Australian band found the perfect sound in 2021. The duo’s early material blew my mind – I knew I was hearing the start of something special. Some of those early tunes, despite being musically immaculate, were held back a little by production that could have been fuller. No such issues anymore. The production on Vacuum Solution captures the vastness of the band’s sound. Captures isn’t the right verb, in fact. Expresses is a more appropriate on...

It was a good year for metal, a decent year for rock, a so-so year for electronica, and a not-much-happening year for punk. Every year’s a good one for metal, though. It expands and diversifies, evolving and surviving. Even in the ’90s when the print media – horseshit-talkers to a man – was blethering about “the death of metal” and claiming Kurt Cobain and Nirvana had killed it, actual events proved otherwise. Some of metal’s biggest-selling outfits sold fewer albums during the grunge years, but...

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In the same musical vein as its predecessor Rituals, this is epic, riff-laden metal driven by Sakis Toliss untamed growl, which would send the faint of heart scurrying for cover. Also like Rituals, theres a strong religious theme (anti-religion is a religion in itself), with greater use made of choral backing vocals like chants of the darkest Satanic monks. The command of melody is astonishing. It isnt easy to combine extreme heaviness with spine-tingling...

1. Alrakis – Echoes from Eta Carinae

Alrakis albums are a long time in the making but they’re worth the wait. To even sum them up as albums seems woefully inadequate. These are soundscapes of infinity, eternity, love, loss, longing, agony. Play Echoes from Eta Carinae on a quality hi-fi, crank up the volume, lie back, close your eyes and see where it takes you. It’s like being propelled into the vastness of space, through incandescent nebulae and aeons of black solitude.  This is more than music.  It’s sonic so...

While working on a blog post about my top 20 albums of 2018, I realised to my horror that I hadn’t published my previous blog post detailing my top 20 albums of 2017. So, not before time, here it is. Better late than never. My top 20 of 2018 will follow soon.

1. Nimbatus – The Invisible Lake

This isn’t the first Nimbatus album to top one of my album-of-the-year lists. The Invisible Lake is in the same vein as previous releases: instrumental metal with complex song structures, gorgeous guita...

1. Jean-Michel Jarre – Oxygène 3

I first experienced these tunes in a live setting a couple of months before the album’s release.  I’ve seen hundreds of gigs but watching the master on stage performing these compositions was the most impressive live-music delivery I’ve witnessed.  A masterpiece of electronica.

Favourite track: Oxygène Part 17.

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2. Rotting Christ – Rituals

I’ve liked Rotting Christ for decades but this album is a monumental leap forward for them.  Every detail – album title,...

A vast amount of quality music emerged in 2015; more than in any other year so far. As well as the usual flood of jaw-dropping melodic-death metal from its breeding ground of Finland, the old guard released new music thick and fast, with Motörhead, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Scorpions, Toto, Jean Michel Jarre, Leslie West, David Gilmour, Keith Richards, Dave Brock, and Billy Gibbons – to name a few – releasing fresh albums. So instead of rounding up my favourite 11 albums of the year, as I usually d...

Mountains clear my mind. It has always been so. They provide solace and solitude, asking nothing in return. I give them things, though: blood, sweat and respect. My respect for wild places is infinite, as is my love for the beasts who inhabit them.

My first climb of 2015 was with Cal, whose father Big Tony – and I have scaled Scotlands highest peaks together, saving each others lives several times along the way. Cal first accompanied us on a climb when he was eight. So happy was he upon reac...