Denizens of Hellenic black metal VARATHRON are back with their seventh full length album.  Along with countrymen ROTTING CHRIST, NECROMANIA and NIGHTFALL, frontman Stefan Necroabyssious mans the helm with the confidence only decades of Greek pathos, pain and punishment can instill. While VARATHRON may not be the most prolific band out there (7 albums in 35 years is a long time between black metaling), "The Crimson Temple" is a confident, chaotic, and cathartic tribute to the music and the land. Necroabyssious is an imposing presence, dark eyes piercing from behind the sparse streaks of corpse paint, his lyrics painting a picture of a medieval world eternally at battle with the dark angel himself.  While the band is tight, confident and (dis)tasteful, it's really Necroabyssious's unique approach to extreme vocals that has always elevated VARATHRON above the rest of the pack.

During the surging "Hegemony of Chaos," a classic example of the Grecian black metal steeped in dark mythology, Necroabyssious growls about "thrones of eternal AH-DEEK-SHUN!"  He garbles and spits his lyrics throughout, over-enunciating in a thick, imposing accent, theatrical without any cringe.  The next song, "Crypts from the Mist" is a hook-laden, verse-chorus-verse-chorus black metal 'single', as if TRIBULATION were spawned from the same lands that spat out Hades, Pan and Hecate.

'Cimmerian' means "intensely dark and gloomy as with perpetual darkness" and priesthood means- well, you know what that fucking means. "Seven seals and seven PLOGS- the prophecy will be done," bellows Necroabyssious on "Cimmerian Priesthood." The song boasts confident guitar playing from Achilleas C. and Sotiris, featuring dual harmonic leads that conjure up JUDAS PRIEST and IRON MAIDEN in terms of their melodic heft.  The rhythm section of bassist Stratos Kountouras and drummer Haris keeps them firmly entrenched in black metal territory.  The song goes in a lot of directions, despite revolving around the title refrain.  VARATHRON are good at making sure they don't stray too far musically from the path, a swath of land worn down over eons through the Greek forest.

"Sinners of the Crimson Temple" begins with a kick ass NWOBHM riff over a mid-tempo groove on the drums, strings augmenting a musical interlude.  The liberal use of synths and traditional instruments on these songs does nothing to take away from the intensity of the tunes, and compliments this ever-permeating feeling of pre-beheading.  It's like the sound of the guillotine hanging just inches from the neck of the victim, all potential and kinetic energy, ready to cut through like a hot knife through cold cheese.  "Immortalis Regnum Diabolis" features a creative change from black metal to thrash metal. It's four to the fucking floor for these aging Greeks, with a groovy, wah-wah washed riff over the chorus, chanted vocals and keys thick like the arterial blood of a stab victim, the blood spurting from the severed head of human prey.  If "Sinners of the Crimson Temple" was the sound of energy, this song is the smell of crimson blood drying on the sharpened blades of the guillotine. "Sworn to him," Necroabyssious implores. "Sworn within!" One wonders if he's singing to the king of the dead and the emperor of nightmares or to the motherland of Greece, as the song uses traditional folk instruments in a wildly convincing way.

The penultimate song "Swamp King" is the most disgusting, slime-covered vocal performance of the album, dripping in tanins, the severed guts of cottonmouths and the putrid mud of tens of thousands years of decay.  A gorgeous intersection of a Greek lyre offers a brief respite from the sludge.  VARATHRON, quite frankly, sound like they are having a blast, and this seems evident throughout the entire slab of black metal filth. For their denouement, the band introduces us to the Archons. In gnosticism, the Archons were the creators of the physical universe.  Viewed by gnostics as creators of an inherently evil and decrepit world, the Archons were brothers of the antichrist, their gnarled tendrils extending to every inch of the modern world. "Constellation of the Archons" attempts to tell this story over an epic, almost ballad-like, seven and a half minutes. Compared to the previous songs, it's a bit of a mood changer and works to a varying degree.  The guitar work from Sotiris and Achilleas C. is impressive, but overall it feels like the band is trying too hard on this one.

"The Crimson Temple" seethes with a violent confidence that only thirty-five years of head-banging and Satan worship can instil.  VARATHRON manage to merge the melodic elements of traditional metal with the sordid intensity of Hellenic black metal, a combination they've managed to perfect over the past three decades.  It's an album that's definitely worth a spin, and you just might find yourself slipping into an imposing Greek accent and espousing the virtues of the Greek gods of evil and mischief.