GRETHOR‘s first full length album Damnatio Memorae was released on January 26th 2018.
The phrase Damnatio Memoriae is Latin for “condemnation of memory.” The Roman Senate adopted this as a form of dishonorable punishment against traitors and criminals who brought shame to the Empire. This punishment, stipulating that a person must not be remembered, was regarded as a fate worse than death. The central lyrical themes of the album are dehumanization, authoritarianism, and the decline of critical thinking. Damnatio Memorae’s artwork was created by surrealist Anton Semenov.
Religion has always been a tool of oligarchy; it had always been the most effective. Whenever it seemed that we were going to transcend it, the shamanistic class would always be amplified by the oligarchs who needed a compliant labor force…The endless wars, the raping of ecosystems, the genocides all in the name of the benevolence of the ‘Christian Nation.’ If we are allowed to denigrate into whatever our tribal instincts desire, if we insist on only existing in only the reality we choose, then the violence that will follow will be inevitable.
– vocalist Marcus Lawrence
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