Rotting Serpent - Advanced Systematik Operations for Xristian Terrorism (2012) [Official Bootleg]

(Album cover... cropping is hard)

Well, the righteous dudes at Coleiosis Media have done it again (in a good way). Hats off to them. Some people out there actually collect my music, and I become aware of it once in a while.

Upon hearing that they had "Advanced Systematik..." (the only Rotting Serpent album not on the bandcamp page), I gave them permission to upload it if they wished to, as an 'official bootleg.'

For all intents and purposes, the album strikes me as more of a 'mixtape.' While it was meant to be an album proper at the time, the songs were basically just me playing badly over backing tracks which were songs in their own right (currently featured under Wednes, and level 131).

This was a crazy time period. I was hooked on amphetamines that year, and had probably been up for 3 days at least when I made this album. [Note: That doesn't (and shouldn't mean) that there is any less sincerity in any of a person's spiritual hopes and/or convictions. It is merely indicative of a deficiency.]

I haven't listened to it in years, it's actually embarrassing to me, as I don't remember it being that great. My playing was sloppy (that is, more than usual), and I just remember there being many mistakes.
That isn't to say it's not listenable, I guess it is. But for me, it's one of those albums I only like to hear once every few years, in private, just to see what it sounds like.... usually with face embedded in palm.

But hey, some people like it (surprisingly) and that's pretty cool, from an artists point of view.

These songs are pretty much Rotting Serpent re-interpreting music from: 

• Wednes - "Rise of the Second Dark Age," and "World Ice Theory" 
• level 131 - "Gnostick Suicide" (originally created in 2008, put under Wednes in 2017, and then re-released with vocals under level 131 in 2019)

Grab it if you like it. 

'Official' Bootleg Download (courtesy of Coleiosis Media):

https://coleiosis.bandcamp.com/album/advanced-systematik-operations-for-xristian-terrorism

Rotting Serpent (1997-2018)

("Official" RS logo)

I suppose the best place to start is with Rotting Serpent.

Rotting Serpent began with a dream, back in 1999 or therabouts. In this dream, I was rummaging through a discount bin of cassettes in some music store, and two casettes I looked at were "Infernity" (i.e., 'Infernal Eternity'), and "Rotting Serpent." The Rotting Serpent cover art was similar to Pantera's "Great Southern Trendkill," which I remember finding odd. I awoke with a sense that I should use one of these names for my music.

Up to that time, I had trouble finding one 'band name' under which to organize my music. If only I had known that, in the future, this conundrum would later blossom forth as a spurting chaos, birthing multiple projects in the process.
Rotting Serpent, as a name, wasn't used until 2003. Prior to that time (between 2001-2002), I had gradually organized all my music under the same Satan's Troops, and before that, I had toyed with several other names as well (Broken Open, Once Dead, Butchered, etc.).

While there is a certain bit of musical dovetailing early on, between Satan's Troops, and Rotting Serpent, there is hardly anything extant from the Satan's Troops days. Aside from two songs ("Marching on to Victory," and "Alive in the Forest of Death," both appearing on the Rotting Serpent album "Spirits of the Unblack"), all of the old Satan's Troops material was either lost or destroyed, to the best of my knowledge...
Even so, there is a big similarity with earlier, mostly acoustic, RS material, and the sound of Satan's Troops; it is possible to see that the one came from the other, and vice-versa.

From 2003 onward, Rotting Serpent was a Christian project. While neither Christianity, nor Christian Metal, was anything new to me (having grown up with both), the "Unblack" scene was still fresh to me. Somewhat naïvely, I fashioned the RS logo after Rotting Christ's logo, not thinking at the time about the cringey trend of Christian Metal bands to offer "Christian versions" of various secular bands. Back in earlier days though, I suppose this was seen as 'cool' somehow, and was looked at with less scrutiny than today (where it just seems kitschy).
This version of the logo would be the one used in 2012, before settling (for the most part) on the logo pictured above, late 2012-early 2013. Other logos are sometimes used, but the logo (at top of page) is probably the closest to an 'official' logo that there is.

The last two RS albums became increasingly ambiguous, with regard to spiritual focus, as I began studying different things.

 

(Drawings from 2003, logo sketches) 

The Rotting Serpent bandcamp has music spanning from 1997-2018 at time of writing. Even though RS technically only began as a project of its own in 2003, I have added music to its back catalogue that was either a precursor to Satan's Troops, or running semi-concurrently with it.

(Alternate logo from 2018 and modified 2020, possibly for future album(s)?)

All albums at 'Name Your Price' (free or donation):

https://rottingserpent.bandcamp.com/


Mediafire links: 

"Original Keyboard Recordings '97"

"Disenchant" (2000)

"Spirits of the Unblack" (2004)

RS - "Seduced by the Ghosts of Rotting Serpents (Death of Antichrist)" (Mediafire)

"Unblack Metal Ist Krieg" 

"Raping the Grave"

"In the Dead of Winter"

"Listen to the Donkey"

"The Last Noel"

"Solstice of Failed Prophecy"