Who’s to say that heavy metal, even extreme metal, must always be against Christianity unless the artists are themselves Christians? A band can explore a historical drama without taking sides or, as with the death/black metal French duo, provide historical context as a background for violent and crushing music while clearly sympathetic with one side. In Autokrator’s case, it is clear from phrases such as "Christians FALSELY charged with guilt" that David Bailey (vocals) and Loïc Fontaine (guitars, bass, samples, production, label owner) seem to see Christians, who suffered great persecution for their faith (and specifically for their refusal to deny Jesus Christ, bow down to Roman gods and Roman emperors) under Roman emperors: Marcus Aurelius, Nero, Diocletian, Domitian, and Trajan, as victims of an undeserved fate so Autokrator’s approach can at least be compared to Henryk Sienkiewicz’s "Quo Vadis" character Petronius who reportedly wrote in a suicide letter to Nero: "you have murdered the most decent people in Rome". Or perhaps Autokrator prefers to have a unique approach among their metal brethren not wanting to sound like your standard "Christians evil, Satan the liberator" ilk? In any case, it works on their fourth installment, "Persecution" (released on November 5th), a devastating set of 5 tracks (if you don’t count the spoken closer "Apocalypsis") of fury, finesse, sophistication without forsaking hooks and brimming with overall remarkable memorability despite lasting a little longer than Slayer’s "Reign In Blood"¹⁹⁸⁶ for a unique, engaging and very good effort that’s sounds equally 20th as the 21st century extreme metal while offering a bit of subtle genre migration.

What does that all mean? It simply means that Autokrator, a dark, gloomy and powerful act since its 2014 inception and throughout the three predecessors: the self-titled²⁰¹⁵, "The Obedience to Authority"²⁰¹⁶ and "Hammer Of The Heretics"²⁰¹⁸ is smart to recognize that other genres have traits that can be used to progress and enhance extreme metal. So, while combining military marching music with death metal rightly evokes comparisons to Morbid Angel’s "Domination"¹⁹⁹⁵ or the first two Nile albums: "Amongst The Catacombs Of Nephren-Ka"¹⁹⁹⁸ and "Black Seeds Of Vengeance"²⁰⁰⁰ ("DCLXVI", "Caesar Nerva Traianus") or Behemoth in the favorite opener "De Gloria Martyrum Et Confessorum", with the resemblance of the gigantic Ulceratian "Antechristus" to Slayer’s "Seasons In The Abyss" (the song) your jaw may drop at some of the guitarwork resembling Korn’s "Life Is Peachy"¹⁹⁹⁶ but only when you’re not aware that death metal was a huge influence to Jonathan Davis & Co. and it is precisely why they sounded so unique and manacing in their early days, which is, too, why Autokrator recalls Yattering and early Immolation for the most ambitious track on "Persecution". The results are very impressive, aided in no small part by returning session drums by Benighted’s Kévin Paradis, but somewhat flawed by the dull and generic "The Great Persecution", especially, since it is a kind of a title track, or the rounding up of the record (Apocalypsis) with some guy reading Revelation 1 in Latin for 5 minutes, understandable as closure but a definite skip due to my both lack of fluency in Latin and excellent familiarity with the passage in English and Polish. Finally, Bailey’s vocals are a definite asset, frightful, changing, yet both flexible and consistently constant, while his chantings are impressive beyond the call of his regular death/black metal duty.

Even when you compare the lyrical form of "Persecution" to the likes of Morbid Angel’s "Lions Den" or Behemoth’s "Christians To The Lions" you have to admit that Autokrator’s is a different attitude and that it is precisely what sets them apart from their predecessors and peeers, making the music more dramatic, rawer and realistic while consistently both brutal and engaging. With a few flaws, "Persecution" hits you at least as hard as "Covenant"¹⁹⁹³ or "Thelema.6"²⁰⁰⁰ while offering superiority through truth in reporting with a self-made superb production job to boot so there’s just one more thing left to say: Long Live Autokrator!

https://autokrator.bandcamp.com/