The Cult of the Horned One

I recently got my dirty little hands on this forgotten gem of a demo and I'm amazed by it's quality. I'm a huge fan of the Greek Black Metal scene and this is exactly what I love.

Thou Art Lord was formed as a side project by the masterminds Sakis Tolis (of Rotting Christ fame) and The Magus (Necromantia) back in 1993. They were aiming for quite brutal, relentless black metal sound and I think this demo is exactly what they wanted it to be.

The demo starts with one of the best Thou Art Lord songs ever:

"The Era of Satan Rising" - A fast, aggressive yet melodic song, dominated by razing tremolo picked riffs, rather deep(for Black Metal) vocals and fast drumming. The fast riffage is only interrupted by one well-crafted slower passage which unleashes the typical Greek feeling of morbid beauty and atmosphere, followed by a great, melodic solo. A fantastic track.


"Praising the Impure" follows and the typical, fast tremolo picked riffs show up once again. The song does have a lot of similarities to "The Era..." in the beginning, but suddenly a slow, keyboard-laden passage breaks in and our ears are graced by beautiful guitar melodies and superb keyboard work. Another great track.

"In Blood We Trust" is slightly weaker than the other two. The slow, pounding intro is slightly overlong and is followed by a rather monotonous und unremarkable riff which is repeated just a little bit too often. It takes a while until the song reaches the quality of the rest of the demo, but at least then we're graced by nice tremolo melodies and atmospheric keyboard use again.

The demo is also remarkable for being the most melodic offering by Thou Art Lord. Their debut album "Eosforos" is still in the same vein, but has a more brutal and already less melodic edge.

I recommend this demo to all fans of early Rotting Christ, Varathron and to all those who dislike Thou Art Lord's newer, Death/Thrash oriented material.

"The Cult of the Horned One" is a (sadly forgotten) masterpiece of a demo.