Which is exactly why I get so irrational talking about Rotting Christ: hundreds of “true” black metal bands recycle the same lyrics, philosophies, production sounds, personae, and phrases to drop into interviews (“To tell you the truth we find it very amusing to see all these bands leaving the scene to cash in & make a lot of money, but to be honest it is no surprise to us since we saw this from the earliest days of the scene,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera), and meanwhile, over there in Athens, dissed by the American metal-buying public as too soft and ignored by the European metal-buying public whose factionalism should be frightening to all who’ve studied history, Rotting Christ just keeps plugging away, exemplifying exactly the sort of fuck-all-y’all thirst for individualism that gave birth to black metal in the first place.