Raw is the law: Ten years of Rotgod

(excerpt from the "Raw is the law" booklet, april 2025)

I still remember that night: april 25-26, 2015.

That was the night a 17-year old Noise Maniakk (not yet self-christened with this foul nickname) wrote his first complete song. For some reason, during that evening, I had felt something weird in the air, and I knew by instinct THAT was the time to officially start unleashing my thirst for raw, primitive 80's underground metal. So, after spending the rest of the evening overdosing on some of my favorite cult classics from that era such as Merciless' "The awakening", Sarcófago's "I.N.R.I.", Schizo's "Main frame collapse" and Sodom's "Obsessed by cruelty", I sat in the dark with my guitar and an old crappy recorder, not knowing what the fuck would come out, yet being aware it would mark the beginning of something special. And I was right: that was the night I demoed out all the main riffs for "Denial of nature" - the first brick for what would become Rotgod's magnum opus to rawness and noise "Sonic degeneracy", which would require years and years of work before coming to the light. At the time, means were scarce and I didn't know very well what the fuck I was doing - but the spirit was there since day one, guiding me like a beacon down the path of true old school sonic extremism.

Ten years later, many things have changed, and not always for the better. Compared to my own teenage years, I see more young people in the scene today - but I know many of them are only here because of the wave of viral trends that has taken the metal scene by storm in recent years. Y'know, the usual suspects: "Lords of chaos", "Stranger Things 4", the recent nu/core revival, and faux-alt TikTok culture swallowing any underground movement into a huge melting pot of watered down aesthetic trends for e-boys and e-girls. Things look pretty grim overall: even the "old school metal" aesthetic has been somehow commodified and dumbed down into a kid-friendly product. The old school death metal resurgence looks bigger than ever right now, compared to the niche movement it used to be around a decade ago (back when bands like Dead Congregation, Grave Miasma, Cruciamentum, Disma, Blaspherian, Father Befouled and a just-reformed Imprecation were the ones to lead the pack) - but a few bands and labels have now figured out a way to repackage some of their products in a way that looks "old school" on the outside (with "vintage" artworks and "rotten" lo-fi production), but underneath the surface they are just your usual boring modern slam/hardcore pap. Many young kids are being fooled by these travesties, believing them to be part of the "old school" sound and orthodoxy, to the point that the "old school" label has now lost all its original meaning, having just become a tagline for any generic death metal band that doesn't sound overtly wanky and plastic in the Archspire fashion. This normiefication of death metal goes hand-in-hand with the recent resurgence of shitty thug-core and scene-core: if scene kids used to wear Suicide Silence merch back in 2007, they now wear Sanguisugabogg merch - showing once again that Euronymous had a point when speaking of the risks of death metal becoming popular and fashionable. Unfortunately, things aren't much better for black metal either: the genre has sunk to even deeper levels of normiefication in recent years, at last fully merging with mall-goth TikTok culture, reaching the ultimate stage of a slow process that has been taking place since the norwegian scene was exposed to the mainstream media back in 1993. Worse than that - even the so-called "war metal" genre has now been exposed and ruined, becoming edgy and fashionable after decades of languishing in underground obscurity only for a select few to hear: names like Blasphemy, Conqueror, Revenge and Diocletian are now being championed by trendy kids and ironic hipsters who just saw a few Blasphemy memes online and possess no real clue about the genre's true roots - most notably, 80's brazilian cult acts such as Mutilator and Holocausto.

Any true fanatic of old school underground metal has the duty to fight back against all this.

That's where the inspiration for "Raw is the law" came from: I was home alone, recovering from a leg accident, just a few months before starting the recordings for the "Polemics and obscenity" double EP - and I wrote a few more angry tunes, venting out my hatred for what the underground metal/hardcore scene has now become (i.e. the so-called "funderground").

"Raw is the law" is a statement of pure 80's lo-fi death/thrash/core supremacy (straight out of the tape-trading/Cogumelo Records era) over both the plastic modern metal pumped out by big labels and the trendy, standardized, commodified forms of pseudo-old school "retro-metal" of today. This sound is way too raw, primitive and unhinged to ever get turned into a fast-food product by any trendy label - and THAT's the essence of true antisocial sonic extremism, the one that always resonated with me since I was 13/14.

And I wasn't content with just that: the ultra-fast grind/noisecore track "Goth black metal tradcunt" features what are probably the most Anal Cunt-ish lyrics I've ever written, mocking the "romantic black metaller" stereotype that's become so fashionable in recent years amongst teenagers due to popular raw black metal projects such as Këkht Aräkh; I've always despised this form of sappy, reactionary romanticism revolting against "the degeneracy of our modern world" in favor of some idealized form of traditional, pre-industrial, "cottagecore" lifestyle (a certain norwegian count is to blame for spreading this narrative amongst black metallers over the last three decades), and I've always attacked it mercilessly in my lyrics - let alone now, that it's become such a widespread meme among the so-called "alternative" youth, showing how humanity never learns the right lesson.

Speaking of which: it's no secret that my faith in humanity has significantly dwindled over the last decade. Back in 2017, as a cautiously optimistic 19-year old, I wrote the lyrics for "The serpent's speech", reinterpreting the myth of Adam and Eve's rebellion against God under a different lens, and praising the human potential to thrive and prosper by means of knowledge and reason in spite of God's cruel punishment. Well, it seems like reason is not enough, and humanity keeps falling prey to the same old cult-like, herd-like behavior - kneeling to a God that, in Al Pacino's words, remains "a prankster, a tight-ass, a sadist and an absentee landlord". Don't believe me? Look at all the "tradcath" bullshit getting increasingly more viral amongst teenagers, who are now being tricked into believing that being a prudish religious nitwit and spamming "Christ is king" everywhere is somehow "cool" or "rebellious". This is exactly the type of narrative I've always fought against with Rotgod - championing freedom, individualism, self-interest, rationalism, critical thinking and dismantlement of puritanical values - and now my current disillusionment with humanity is reflected in the lyrics for "Garden of God כַּרְמֶל (paradise lost)", a sort of hypothetical sequel to "The serpent's speech" that is not quite what you would expect: while the first song was energetic and fast as hell, this one is slow and melancholic, taking a few hints from the early-90's european death/doom scene (yup, you heard me - some 90's influences popping up in Rotgod's sound!), and showing a much more tragic fate than I originally envisioned for the protagonist - being confined on Earth and gaslit into an unbearable sense of guilt by a God that behaves more like an abusive/manipulative partner. This cannot end well for the poor guy, can it? Well, it doesn't. Guilt overtakes him and he commits suicide by slashing his own wrists. Instead of using his own intellect and advancements to show God the finger, he succumbs to his own unwarranted sense of devotion.

By the way, what's with the jewish writing in the song title? Well, some questions are better left unanswered.

Speaking of subhumans who never learn: after this highly pessimistic detour, I've decided to end the EP on a slightly more humorous note by taking a jab at my fellow citizens with the fast grinding number "From the depths of Satania". What is Satania? Well, it's the city I live in - where crime, filth, misery, corruption, disorganization and baby gangs run rampant, and horse meat ("cann'i' cavaddu") gets cooked right in the middle of the streets. Lyrics for this song are lifted from a hilarious old tune in sicilian dialect ("Catania is burning" by Sito Esaurito) making fun of all the worst stereotypes about the more illiterate Catania citizens (the so-called "mammoriani", or "zaurdi"). Spoiler: all these stereotypes are true, and they rightfully deserve to be mocked to death, as they represent the lowest ring in humanity's evolutionary chain. Trust me, I do know quite a bit about it: the accident I was recovering from, at the time of writing this EP, was caused by one of these lowlives deliberately (and I stress "deliberately") running over me with his moped - just for fun y'know, kids these days.

The spite I feel towards Italy and Catania in particular has never been a secret (remember older tracks such as "Italy is doomed" and "This state sucks"?), and it has recently culminated into the mutilated corpse of "Sant'Aituzza" (Catania's patron saint) being shown as part of the inlay art for the "Polemics and obscenity" double CD. You already bought that one, didn't ya? If not - WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Bitter feelings aside (Rotgod wouldn't exist without those anyway), it still feels amazing to be here ten years since writing that first little "Denial of nature" tune, which is still one of my favorites despite its severely sub-optimal recording/mixing quality: that's why I've included a slightly remixed/remastered version of the original track as a digital-only bonus track to this EP (which can be listened on all streaming platforms and downloaded for free from ROTGOD.BANDCAMP.COM) - placing better emphasis on those killer death/thrash riffs I wrote on that fateful night, a decade ago.

Thank you all noise maniakks for all the support you've given me in recent years: this EP is dedicated to all of you - printed on vinyl for a more genuinely vintage listening experience, coming with a masterful artwork by the amazing Claudio Elias Scialabba (Visual Aggression Zine), and two gorgeously hideous posters of the "Raw is the law" and "Sonic degeneracy" artworks (perfect to hang on your walls to scare people away, if you're as grumpy and jealous of your own privacy as I am) - plus a neat surprise prepared for you by my dear friend Shax: an amazing handmade collage dedicated to Catania's 80's thrashcore scene, including killer cult acts such as Schizo, Incinerator, D.I.Y. and No Rules. This is indeed the only thing that makes me feel proud of living in this rotten city - and most importantly, THIS is what I consider to be the real "scene" in Catania, the one I feel directly inspired by and whose inheritance I'm trying to carry on with Rotgod. NO TRENDS - just hate, chaos, rawness and "'mbare chi spacchiu si'".

Do you feel the same as me in regards to the current trendy pseudo-underground "scene"? Well, I'm not done yet: for all the young metalheads amongst you who are not casual listeners/scenesters and are genuinely interested in Rotgod's musical roots, I've left a "top 30" list on the back of this booklet that will satisfy your curiosity and expand your perspective on the roots of extreme metal, exposing you to some truly formative works from the 80s within the realm of proto-death metal, proto-black metal, thrashcore and grindcore - back when all these subgenres were actually part of a single, cohesive melting pot of underground sonic extremism (which is the approach I've always championed with my music, as opposed to the rigid divisions and fractures established during the 90s, when extreme metal got way too big for its own good).

And if your thirst for knowledge about Rotgod in general is not satisfied yet, I also have set up a website/blog that features many more infos and relics about the project's history - without the risk of it getting lost in the social media/web 2.0 black hole of short-lived, low attention span content. The URL is ROTGOD.COM!

Enjoy all this wretched stuff, and don't worry about getting tired of it quickly, 'cause I'm already busy working on ROTGOD'S SECOND ALBUM - which will follow and expand upon the depraved, noisy sound that was established on the "Sonic degeneracy" album and the "Polemics and obscenity" EPs, bringing in more primitive blasting, more untrendy experimentation and an overall more mature synthesis of my musical influences.

The album will be called "DESECRATE, DEMYSTIFY, DESACRALIZE" and will represent the epitome of Rotgod's vision, philosophy and attitude. The war against the funderground has just begun.

Thank y'all once again - stay raw, stay noisy.

RAW IS THE LAW!

- Noise Maniakk

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