Holy Tears (Ego Fum Papa)

Here's the other release from Spain's Rotten Flesh in the form of an EP. Two versions of this exist. One is a 7" vinyl with two songs and an intro, while the other is a cassette pressing that has two additional tracks. Both were released by Drowned Productions. Dave Rotten himself recorded me the two bonus songs from the cassette some years ago, but because I couldn't find them I decided to just review the 7" version.

After their rather disappointing demo effort, Rotten Flesh decided to shift gears for this release and give themselves a heavy Satanic theme. This is not only evident in the lyrics, but in the music as well. While the general atmosphere of the songs is still similar, the darker vocals and sinister riffs amount to more of a (mild) black metal approach. The songs are also played much tighter musically, and gone is the repetitive simplicity of the grindcore/death metal hybrid that they had going on before.

Fortunately, the production hasn't changed much and is still just as thick and heavy as it was on "Morgue of Souls". In addition to the great tone of the bass drums, the snare sounds totally killer this time as well. The vocalist is the same, but his style is more along the lines of Glen Benton from Deicide now. Come to think of it, that wouldn't be the end of the Deicide comparisons, as most of the music on this EP is very much in the vein of that Florida foursome.

An acoustic guitar piece called "Requiem to Satan" opens the 7". Despite the godless title, the melody here is very sad and ethereal and doesn't sound typically Satanic at all. "Blaspheme Words" is where the real music kicks in. The song starts off at mid tempo with lots of furious double bass and some chunky guitar riffing. It picks up speed along the way, but is played at a comfortable and heavy pace (not all-out grindcore blasting). The music gets very atmospheric later on, with the addition of some chilling keyboards and darker guitar leads... Side B features the track "Death of God". This one is much faster, with lots of aggressive thrash beats and even the occasional blasts from the drummer. It slows down mid-way, where a set of catchy, semi-melodic leads are unleashed by the guitarist. The singer sounds almost exactly like Benton on "Legion" here, especially towards the final moments of the song where he experiments with some demonic-sounding dual vocal layering.

This EP is definitely stronger than the band's demo, but it's missing that dose of originality that would put Rotten Flesh to the top shelf of death metal bands. Merely adding some keyboard effects to blatant Deicide worship doesn't get the job done. They finally got something going under the name Undivine, but that was very short-lived and in the end black metal seemed to be this band's destiny.