I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that at the moment there is no band that would produce a better or more appealing and engaging melange of melancholia and darkness than Germans Rope Sect. Their outstanding debut album The Great Flood was my favourite record of 2020, and it looks like their new EP Proskynesis continues just where that debut left off. Their sound is certainly displaying no reduction in quality or appeal – on the contrary. It looks like Proskynesis will further cement the position the secretive death rock band has established for themselves.

Proskynesis, the term after which the EP was named, is an ancient gesture of respect offered to gods and kings, where a person throws themselves flat on the ground to demonstrate submission or reverence. The release info specifies to whom that reverence is offered here: The first three tracks of the EP are an “homage to the force that is manifested in the King of the Night – a worship of the ideas and ideals of the sect that were secretly ignited and built up to a grand fire which will even survive and endure the great flood and therefore remain forever.” The EP cover, featuring a photograph of a crowd adoringly grasping for and touching a giant noose, continues to cultivate the image of a death cult, similar to earlier releases.

Proskynesis has two distinct halves, each compromised out of three songs. The first three songs are titled Proskynesis I, II and III and have an unmistakable familiarity about them. Anyone who knows the band’s music will be drawn in immediately, just as you were before. Rope Sect’s combination of post punk and death rock, which includes allusions to metal here and there, is gripping and sad at the same time. The sadness of the melodies and the melancholic clean vocals is contrasted with gripping rhythms and frantic drumming outbursts resulting in a peculiar but very appealing mixture that is neither kitschy nor numbingly depressive. Instead, it shines with genuine insight into the human condition. The second half of the EP consists of three more songs that stem from an older period when Rope Sect was still a one-person project. All written by main man Inmesher, these songs are of a slightly different character, but nothing less appealing. Most notably, they contain more electronic sounds and thus draw connections to other well-known bands from Germany. My favourite among them is Lava, where the combination of hectic programmed drums, cascading melody and lamenting vocals creates an irresistible soundscape.

If post punk, death rock and goth rock are your kind of music, or if you share is a fin-de-siècle mindset – this is a must have.

(8.5/10 Slavica)

https://www.facebook.com/theropesect

https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com/album/rope-sect-proskynesis