Septicflesh are a Greek
Death Metal band that first formed in 1990. Originally a
Death/
Doom Metal act, they put out six albums before breaking up in 2003. The group reunited in 2007 and released
Communion, a
New Sound Album that combined their old sound with
Symphonic Metal, the following year. In 2018, they signed with Nuclear Blast records, and released their first album with them,
Modern Primitive, in 2022.
Current Lineup:
- Spiros Antoniou – harsh vocals, bass (1990-2003, 2007–present)
- Cristos Antoniou – guitars, vocals, orchestration (1990-2003, 2007–present)
- Sotiris Vayenas - guitars, clean vocals (1990-2003, 2007–present)
- Kerim "Krimh" Lechner - drums (2014-present)
Studio Albums:
- Mystic Places of Dawn (1994)
- ΕΣΟΠΤΡΟΝ (1995)
- The Ophidian Wheel (1997)
- A Fallen Temple (1998)
- Revolution DNA (1999)
- Sumerian Daemons (2003)
- Communion (2008)
- The Great Mass (2011)
- Titan (2014)
- Codex Omega (2017)
- Modern Primitive (2022)
EPs:
- Temple of the Lost Race (1991) - heavily reworked versions of all songs later appear on A Fallen Temple
- The Eldest Cosmonaut (1998) - contains the final two parts of the "Underworld" saga, as well as the previously unreleased "Woman of the Rings"
- Forgotten Paths (The Early Days) (2000) - remastered version of their Forgotten Paths demo from 1991, re-released as a mini-album
This band contains examples of the following tropes:
- Band of Relatives: Spiros and Christos are brothers and have both been with the band since their inception.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: The cyborgs alluded to throughout Titan; their loss of humanity leads them to kill the Earth in an attempt to make it lifeless and artificial like them.
- Darker and Edgier: Communion and the albums that follow it are noticeably more intense and less melodic musically than their earlier material. Lyrically, they aren't that much darker, with the exceptions of Titan and Codex Omega that focus on a cybernetic apocalypse and anti-religious screeds, respectively.
- Deal with the Devil: "Faust".
- Death/Doom Metal: Their earlier material is this with noticeable shades of Gothic Metal.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The Ophidian Wheel and A Fallen Temple feature a few operetta-style tracks with harpsichords, synths, spoken word and very little in the way of electric guitar.
- The Ferryman: "Dark River" is narrated by Charon as he crosses the Acheron to the underworld; he even refers to himself as such.
- Genre Mashup: The primary genres on this page are vague descriptors at best; they've also incorporated elements of Industrial Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Black Metal, Post-Metal, and many other genres in their material.
- Genre Roulette: Many of their albums cover a wide variety of metal sub-genres, though Sumerian Daemons is particularly notable for really embodying this trope.
- Sumerian Daemons runs the gamut from atmospheric gothic Doom Metal ("Virtues of the Beast", "Magic Loves Infinity"), aggressive blackened Death Metal ("Unbeliever", "Faust", "When All is None", "Red Code Cult"), Melodic Death Metal ("Dark River", "Infernal Sun", "The Watchers"), to Industrial Metal ("Shapeshifter") or some mix of the four ("Sumerian Daemon", "Mechanical Babylon"). The whole album is practically a mash-up of all the sounds they explored in their first five albums.
- Genre Shift: From Gothic-tinged Death/Doom to Symphonic Metal.
- Gothic Metal: While their early material is more aggressive than is typical for the genre, the gloomy, keyboard-aided atmospherics and ethereal melodies of their pre-Communion albums definitely qualify as such.
- Communion and the albums that followed it more-or-less dropped keyboard atmospherics in favor of faster and heavier songwriting backed by bombastic orchestration, but their old influences still crop up occasionally, as demonstrated by "Sunlight/Moonlight", "Narcissus", "Therianthropy", "The First Immortal", "Martyr", and "Trinity".
- Heavy Mithril: Many of their songs take inspiration from Egyptian, Greek, and Sumerian mythology and mysticism, the Bible, and fantasy fiction.
- Jerkass Gods: "We, the Gods" depicts them being far from generous and forgiving.
- Lyrical Dissonance: "The Ophidian Wheel" is a fairly heavy and tonally dark death metal song with light, flowery High Fantasy lyrics.
- Metal Scream: Spiros Antoniou is a Type 2.
- New Season, New Name: After regrouping and changing their name from "Septic Flesh" to "Septicflesh", the band considers themselves to be in "Phase 2".
- New Sound Album: While earlier albums dabbled in the genre, Communion marked the move to full-on symphonic Death Metal.
- Propaganda Machine: "Enemy of Truth", which criticizes fake news
. - Purple Prose: They often write their lyrics in the style of Renaissance epic poetry like Orlando Furioso, sometimes to the point of extreme obtuseness. They've gotten much better balancing allegory and directness in their lyrics over time, though, and some of their recent lyrics can be pretty darn direct - compare the abstract "Smiling Marble Face" to the decidedly pointed "Enemy of Truth".
- Religion of Evil: "Red Code Cult".
- Religion Rant Song: They'll have at least one song per album portraying Christ and His followers as evil, deranged, or both, or is otherwise highly critical of organized religion in general. "The Vampire of Nazareth", "Babel's Gate", "Red Code Cult"...the list goes on.
- Codex Omega is more-or-less composed of these mixed with their usual Heavy Mithril. The title song in particular is a decidedly pointed Type 2.
- Science Fantasy: They have a number of songs about gods and demons manifesting through technology, especially on Revolution DNA and Titan.
- Soprano and Gravel: Some songs feature clean vocals from Sotiris Vayenas to contrast Spiros' Harsh Vocals.
- Strictly Formula: While each has its own distinct motifs and concepts, the sound of their albums from Communion onward have generally had very few deviations from each other. Even Modern Primitive, which followed the longest gap between albums since they reunited, was cited by even those who enjoyed it as more of the same.
- Surprisingly Gentle Song: Putting aside the operettas on The Ophidian Wheel and A Fallen Temple, the band occasionally puts out tracks that are primarily atmospheric in nature or are otherwise noticeably milder than the rest of the album. Examples include "Morpheus" on Mystic Places of Dawn, "Marble Smiling Face" on A Fallen Temple, "The Last Stop to Nowhere" on Revolution DNA, "Sunlight/Moonlight" on Communion.
- Symphonic Metal: Probably the hardest band in this genre aside from Fleshgod Apocalypse. Notable in that the introduction of symphonics made their music heavier.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: "Therianthropy".
