Samael - Hegemony (2017)

It's evident that the members of Samael and myself seem to agree on the Passage-era being the one most inspiring and interesting to revisit, and Hegemony is perhaps the greatest example of that since that 1996 opus dropped through Century Media. That's not to say I don't also enjoy their earlier, more primitive black metal records or the transitional Ceremony of Opposites, in fact I think those are the more influential by far; yet those machine-driven, poetic paeans to the cosmic which dominated their fourth album are forever my siren call when reaching over to their section of my CD rack. So I cannot at all blame them for attempting to rekindle that particular  style, which they've already done a few times, in particular on the more aggressive Above and its successor Lux Mundi, which for my money was the best Samael album of the 21st century...until now, although I'd argue that Hegemony is far more directly an homage to Passage than its predecessor was.

That's both a good and bad thing, because while Vorphalack and crew are clearly intent on dressing up and expanding those aesthetics, there are numerous moments here where you'll feel as if you're getting deja-vu for a synthesizer or guitar progression, drum pattern or fill that you've already heard two decades ago. For the most part, they're coming up with new chord patterns, which works out really well in a tune like "Red Planet" which is a new take on the warlike space opera of a "Jupiterian Vibe" which will have you marching in similar step. Most of the melody in modern Samael music is provided solely by the synthesizers, which have the same martial, striking, sweeping feel to them here as they cultivate both a militaristic and Eastern sheen. It's up to the beats, lower end guitars and Vorph's distinct, eternally accented snarls to provide the metallic bedrock, and they do so well, with a lore more cutting, kinetic passion to them than you'd hear out of comparable hybrids of industrial and metal aesthetics such as those of the Neue Deutsche Härte persuasion. I also have to praise the bass playing here, from new member Drop, who lays out these awesome, fat, rolling lines that support the clamorous, choppy majesty in tunes like "This World". While the drum programming has long been a point of contention for some fans, I think Xytras does another great job layering in thick enough and 'real enough' percussion pads without abandoning the martial and mechanical coldness.

The lyrics these days continue the themes of social consciousness and social unity that they first embarked on with Eternal, but they're also willing to spark up a little pseudo-controversy with a cut like "Black Supremacy", and if you've seen the video there you'll probably have seen a lot of the responses. Hint: it's not really about what you think it is. There are also some self-referential pieces like their namesake "Samael", or "Angel of Wrath", the former of which is like a giant socialist shout out to celebrate the band's following, and their message. It's a little heavy handed, but not as corny as, say, Reign of Light; and it wouldn't be the first time, since it does fit the band's modernist, corporate or empirical vision and minimalist visual branding which manifests in both the sleek packaging and fattened new logo variant (which I think is an improvement). Samael is just one of a kind, and while I can promise that those who have shunned everything they've released since 1994 will find no end here to pulling out their own hair and seeking sanctuary in the shadow of some inverted cross where no keyboard dares to tread, I readily admit to having enjoyed the hell out of this.

A couple nicks and dents here or there, a few songs not pulling their weight quite as much as others, but they even manage to transform "Helter Skelter" into something of their own, and the bonus track "Storm of Fire" is one of the coolest on the album. They also don't pull back too far on the heavy spectrum, for example "Black Supremacy" would have felt right at home on Above. Hegemony might not ultimately emit the level of timeless material that Passage was built from, but it certain does a fantastic job of capturing its ebullient, storming magnificence.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (light and force have a name)

https://www.samael.info/

Samael - Eternal (1999)

While Eternal is clearly a spiritual successor to Passage in terms of its spacey aesthetics, focused cover imagery and further progression towards electronics, it might also be viewed as one of the strangest evolutions in Swiss metal since the much maligned Cold Lake over a decade prior. It's unforgettable predecessor maintained a darker, frightening edge to it in spite of its fantastic riffing and general accessibility, but with this fifth full-length, Vorphalack, Xytras and company would go all happy on us. Pop some xstasy. In fact, it's generally better to think of this record as some sort of industrial universal space-dance music which just happens to retain a metal riffing and garbled, harsher vocal aesthetic than a proper metal recording (akin to The Kovenant's Animatronic without the corny Marilyn Manson band image), and absolute anathema for a chunk of the band's original audience who were stuck at Worship Him. 'No, fuck that man, this band lost it after the first rehearsal in 1987.' Ha!

But herein lies the catch. Despite Vorph's weird whispered and growled vocal lines through Eternal, which resemble pop and hip hop structures just as much as the gnarled, passionate black metal of his prior output...despite the increased importance of typified dance beats and synthesizer lines through which Xytras is attempting to bridge the classical and EBM fields....despite the fact that half the guitars on this album are merely low chugs or chords used to accent the beats...and despite the odd, raw production which would seem out of place for industrial/pop and was likely due to the band's novelty at blending these mediums, Eternal is a charming album. Yeah, it often feels like the band came up with the idea while enjoying a hot tub by starlight, in the Alps with some rich bankers' wives giggling over these artsy young studs they managed to wrangle, but there is this sentimental quality created through the contrast of choir synthesizers, reverberating electronic percussion, schmaltzy lounge organs/percussion (on a few tunes) and Vorph's 'Wait, we were recording that?', diabolic yet mouth-breathing presence that somehow transcends all the inherent flaws and musical faux-pas to produce something worthwhile...

Guitars. They're here, but divided into three camps. First: the aforementioned palm muting or syncopated chord phrases which are there to serve more or less in tandem with the other percussion (examples: the verses of "Ways" and "Us"), a technique you'd expect from a lot of industrial radio rock like Stabbing Westward or Rammstein. Second, and these are better, these floes of warmer and melodic chords, faster or slower, used to emotionally elevate many of the chorus vocals; they've got an alt rock feel to them, but definitely are one of the elements that were drafted forward from Passage. Lastly you've got a few living clever phrases like the creepy melody that comes into the verse in "Ailleurs" (or "The Cross"), and these are probably the most effective on the album, meaning I wish there were actually a few more. Missing are the brilliant, meticulous black/thrash progressions from the prior album, a blow that is felt by this listener, but in the end I can't rightly say that they would have worked with the overall feel and structure of the songwriting. Still, they hadn't voided the guitar as an instrument altogether, far from it, and the notes used here are at least more memorable than the two full-lengths to follow, even if their respective mixes put more emphasis on the riffs.

The synthesizers play an enormous role, largely through the choir pads which are used to give much of the album that cosmic, ethereal effect, like a seraph floating between planets with its glimmering sword out front. Probably a bit cliche, but Samael do them justice with simple but catchy patterns. In addition Xytras uses a lot of busier piano phrases which are amongst the most complex lines of notes on the album, and then they step even further outside with a mixture of 80s prog/New Age and cheesy techno-inspired sequences which occasionally sound like Tangerine Dream writing house music. It's all well and good for me, since I listen to a lot of that anyway, but others are just not going to be so welcoming of this stuff if their expectations were Blood Ceremony 2.0. They'll be even LESS welcoming of the weirder moments like in "Being" where the pianos get all saloon-bluesy with the goofy little electric guitar trills, or in "Radiant Star" where the organs make the intro feel like The Doors are about to stroll into a pastry shop on a Paris corner. I happen to love that song, the chorus is particularly timeless and emotional with Vorph's protracted growls, but it's pretty bizarre how they got from that point A to B and certainly was unique for 1999.

As for the beats, the more danceable nature of the writing definitely brings their artificial nature to the fore more so than Passage, an album that could have just as well been executed with a drummer, but lost no points for the slick programming. Usually they go big and industrial but there are a lot of subtleties here, electronic/pulse stuff hidden in both calmer moments and greater swells which does occasionally hover on glitch without the warping. Since they were at this time really into all the fire swinging cosmic carnival theatrics in their performances, there is definitely a bit of hippie drum circle aesthetic here, only it's represented electronically with some lighter percussion rather than the thundering of some tribal gathering. That said, when the band needs power, like the clashing accents to the chorus of "Together", they really come through, so despite the theoretical superiority this recording might have had with an actual human striking a kit, I don't have much of an issue that they chose to go this route again. Masmiseîm also sounds pretty electrified, with some bass lines that sound quite synthesized, but the simplistic grooves he metes out in tunes like "The Cross" are critical to contrast against that hovering nightscape of keyboard atmosphere.

Lastly, we come to the vocals, which are basically the whispers, semi-growls and rasps of the last album only seeming a little more laconic and poppy in their implementation. The guy's voice does have a hard time standing out against the more shining electronic aspects, and many could be forgiven for thinking the guy sounds absolutely goofy, but it's part of what gives the album it's sense of impossible charisma, since it runs contrary to most of what people love about a good pop or EBM band...a strong singer with an 80s penchant for choral melodies that engrave a tune into memory. Vorph's performance IS memorable, but incredibly flawed all the same, which was either a brilliant or stupid move depending on who you ask. A lot of the meters and ideas seem half-formed, but it is nice that he'll occasionally lay out a larger growl for balance. Lyrically, though, this further emphasis towards spiritual exploration and personal meanings, far removed from the evil occultism on their old material is a bit of a shock. The song titles are incredibly, efficiently Zen and the lyrics almost constantly attempt to uplift the listener with traces of Eastern mysticism and pacifistic enlightenment. It's almost as if they had a Darjeeling Limited moment somewhere between 1996-1998 when they were thinking how they'd follow up their masterpiece.

And that's about the best I can do, good readers. It's a unique album for sure, but one of those 'I'll allow you this one' deals for me, where I admired the band's transformation but wouldn't necessarily want to hear them try this again (which they sort of did, sadly). The first track "Year Zero" is pretty representative of the sound of the whole album, but it's actually the least interesting/memorable so I question its front placement when everything else is so much bloody catchier. That aside, I really liked the album. It's touching and heartfelt and all those sorts of things a Samael record probably shouldn't have ever been, but its combination of airy, raw production and its humanitarian, philosophical approach to industrial metal was one I really went for when the album released, and I still quite enjoyed it when listening to prepare for this review. Are the simplistic, repetition-focused lyrics meek? Sometimes, but just as often they're extravagant. Is it a disappointment after Passage? What wouldn't be? But if you're open to electronic influence, space raving on ski slopes, and listening to music that your girl/guyfriend might also dig on when you introduce it to them, then this might work for you. "Ailleurs", "Ways", "The Cross", "Infra Galaxia", "I", "Radiant Star"...all great songs... in fact only "Year Zero" is worth skipping.

There are no guilty pleasures.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (the move is fixed at the furthest point)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Solar Soul (2007)

While Samael wouldn't ultimately jump back on the horse for me until the angrier, 2009 effort Above, their seventh full-length 'heavy' album (discounting the experimental contractual filler Era One/Lesson in Magick #1) Solar Soul at least pulled out a little damage control for the stunningly mediocre Reign of Light. In other words, it was clear by this point that they had hit their nadir, swirled around the bottom of whatever bottle was indulging their respective identity crises, and decided to swim back up to the surface and take a few breaths. Once again, I really, really enjoyed this when I first came across it, but was obviously listening through rose-colored...ear. After a few months or so, I came to the decision that this was not in fact some savior of a record to reaffirm they could attain the brilliant level they were at in the mid 90s.

However, the songwriting chops here seem to hearken to their glory days, and there are actually a few tunes on this one which I'd include with any career-wide highlight reel. It's still quite a bit cheesy in the lyrical department, recycling the 'let's all hold hands together' globalist hippie garbage promoted so heavily on the prior few albums, almost like this band of former Swiss occultists had suddenly discovered Krishna, or tantra, or universal unitarianism, or whatever. But at least the music here serves up a serious beating when matched against the electroid detritus of Reign of Light and Era One... The guitars still bounce back and forth between the inspirational hooks and chords of earlier works and the vapid dumbell chugging of the most LCD industrial metal you can fathom, but there is far more effort placed in the context of harmonies and other melodic structures. It's a busier album than Eternal, for example, and I really like that the guitars were reasserting themselves as a riffing force rather than passive accompaniment to the beats and synthesizers. Remarkably, it still adheres to that sense of Romantic escapism which defined that album as so unique at the end of the 90s...

...to the point that I really feel like, if you stripped off its production and just analyzed how the songs played out, it's like an amalgamation of tracks that were left on the cutting room floor during both the Eternal and Reign of Light sessions, but with a refined production that itself is stronger than either. There are a couple dragging, lame tracks where they err on the electronic side a little too much (like "Western Ground" or the Rammstein-in-the-Orient vibes of "Quasar Waves") but they also beat you over the head a few times, foreshadowing the aggression level of Above ("On the Rise", or the chorus to "Valkyries'"). The synthesized horns smack of Reign of Light and Passage both, the vocals are largely in the style they had been since 1994, but once awhile they'd surprise me with a tune that follows in the 'spirit' of a precursor, but adds a new twist in the keyboard pads used, or the direct construction of the rhythm guitars. For instance, "Olympus" seems like a callback to "Jupiterian Vibe", but the guitars are nearly as interesting, more so than something like "Ave!", which isn't so compelling, or the prior decade's "Tribes of Cain" which was obviously a less inspired rehash they didn't want on Passage itself due to the redundancy it would create for the listener.

In the end, though, Solar Soul just doesn't go far enough into either a new direction or back into the past to really have made much of a difference. It thankfully and deservedly avoided the dumping on that Reign of Light took, but after perhaps a half dozen listens I recall shelving it and rarely having the interest in hearing it again when Passage, Ceremony of Opposites or Eternal were available to me. A tight album, which fixes some of that awkwardness which stunted its predecessor, and confirms to the more confused corner of their audience that they weren't going vocal electronica full-time (which a few folks might have feared when hearing Era One); and not unpleasant to listen to. In 2007, I might have ranked this a point or so higher, but time hasn't been the kindest in terms of keeping this set of songs moored in my memory banks, so it remains among their least visited albums in my collection, excepting the two before it. If nothing else, Samael seemed to be gaining ground again, instead of losing it, and the gradual incline in quality it hastened has since continued through Above and Lux Mundi.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (push aside yesterday)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Reign of Light (2004)

There was a brief window of time in which I had convinced myself that Reign of Light was a great follow-up to Eternal, Samael's first foray into a more uplifting, poppy and dare I say 'Romantic' sound which further distanced them from the occult roots of their primal, nasty black metal origins. Thankfully, I was deluded only for a few shorts months as the record began to almost immediately flake off its replay value, and then the forest was seen for its trees: Reign of Light is an attempt to take the ideas presented on Eternal to a more accessible level by ramping up the production standards (one of the few iffy traits of its predecessor), imbuing the music with a more overtly techno/EBM presence redolent of early 90s KMFDM, and, at least for the most part, dumbing down the lyrics and guitars to the point that they seem fixated on pandering to a Euro Goth metal crowd who was still willing to accept the band after they had long since begun to shed the underground black metal fans who represented their original audience.

I'm not going to say this is totally shit, because there are a few saving graces here or there that render it a pretty harmless effort, but when I look back over the Swiss band's career, this is the full-length I am least likely to ever reach for on my CD racks. In fact, I sold it a few years after it was released, when living space started to trump my completist/collector mentality. By and large, though, this is an album where the band had seemingly reached the creative end of their evolutionary cycle, morphing into something akin to a caricature of the albums preceding it, and having very little new on the table apart from the slightly unwelcome (or rather unsuccessful) endowment of cheap electronics and the attempts at exotic, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian influence to some of the guitars and synth lines, prominent in tunes like "Telepath", which are structurally the highlights of the album but do suffer from some poor compositional choices and goofy lyrical delivery. And those are really the two major banes of Reign of Light as a whole: lots of mundane muted guitar passages representative of the second rate industrial metal of the 90s and the Neue Deutsche Härte dance metal that Germanic bands like Rammstein were capitalizing on. Samael was always predisposed to fail at such heights due to the snarled, strange vocals of Vorphalack, so it's almost pitiful to hear them try...

A lot of the tunes are meant to make you shake your ass at the club, which would be fine if they somehow stuck out to memory, but sadly that takes the form of transforming the glorious synth tones so resplendent on records like Eternal and the immortal Passage and then applying them to these pumping beats and vocal lines that occasionally seem so ridiculous that they fall out of meter when Vorph tries to wrap them around the drums and keys. A few songs here, like "As the Sun" are outright fucking embarrassing...like early 80s Olivia Newton John workout videos given a grimy EBM spin with the nihilistic rasping of the deranged Swiss man. I'm not necessarily averse to such contrasts, having played for awhile in an industrial/extreme metal hybrid band where I'd growl over late night radio house synthesizers or such, but those were usually tongue in cheek situations; whereas Samael is dead serious, seemingly unaware of how absurd they sound. You see, the reason why this record became such a quick 'sinker' is that it does actually have a few clever guitar riffs, at best recapturing that universal, unusual industrial metal warmth of Eternal, but when you break everything down, there are probably only 2-3 tracks worth sparing, if we could somehow change the lyrics...

Yeah they are pretty uneven here. I was willing to buy this newfound, smug, life-embracing happy happy Samael for one record, and one record only, but here it just becomes ridiculous on a cut like "On Earth" where they ramble off a long list of cities (presumably those where their fans reside) and attempt to bind the entire human race together in an orgy of sentiment. So, like that awful scene in the Matrix sequel where the Zionians were having a vast, multicultural passion-rave of release, all colors and ages of bodies roiling together in the sheen of aspirant supermodel sweat. Only the Fluke tune during that scene was far better than this song or really anything on this album. It's just fucking goofy, man...what happened to the "Jupiterian Vibe" or "Baphomet's Throne"!? I mean you know a band's running out of ideas when the lyrics consist of a series of 'shout outs', and there are all these other songs about 'our vibrations' and 'our souls' and how 'we keep growing' in our new world and all this other ambiguous philosophical pap that sends the hearts a-flutter, or in my case the heart a-shitter. Fuck, "Reign of Light" itself has some of the most cliche and excremental lyrics you'll ever see in posi-metal. Perfect for those who think Theater of Tragedy's electro hardpop records were anything more than catchy club rock (to be fair, those were really damn catchy...this is not, at least not often).

The cleanliness of the mix only serves to make Vorph sound even more goofy when singing a lot of these, whereas Eternal had the smokescreen of sounding a bit more raw and spacey, and Passage was brilliantly poetic, angry and humanistic. This is not a disc entirely void of its hooks, and I like a few of the guitar melodies as they appear in the bridge of "Moongate" or the "Jupiterian Vibe"-like "High Above", which alongside "Telepath" represent the trio of highlights here. The ethnic female vocals are put to sparse, decent use and the mix of programmed drums, multiple atmospheric levels of keyboards and guitars are very evenly balanced, but really even the best songs seem like retreads of the songs on the two albums before it, only friendlier for the whole family. Half the material is just as corny as the vocal-half of the Era One/Lessons in Magick #1 double-album which was released later by Century Media (but written around the same time as this material). And, really, if any of this sounds even remotely interesting, just go straight for its successor Solar Soul, which has a much harder hitting guitar presence alongside the vocals, but still features the same fancy for the exotic, Eastern synthesizer lines while feeling slightly less awkward overall.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10] (hungry for life again)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Era One/Lesson in Magick #1 (2006)

Era One/Lesson in Magick #1 might have come as a surprise to many unaware Samael fans, but it was not wholly unexpected from this sector. One need only peruse some of the various remixes and ambient filler tracks the Swiss had included on their EPs to know they were pretty big fans of electronica and orchestration both, and when you consider the direction the harder material had been taking through Eternal and Reign of Light, then it's hardly coming out of left field that they'd tackle not one, but two full length albums of pure electronica...not entirely EBM, not quite industrial, but sort of a Samael-pop if that makes any sense. But that's not exactly the story, because these albums were pitched a few years before even Reign of Light got out the door, so I smell some degree of contractual filler here, even if Xytras and Vorph were enthusiastic about these being released to their audience in an official capacity. They had, after all, been working on another label and would again for the next heavier disc Solar Soul.

So: two discs, distinct from one another in that the first, Era One, features Vorph's vocals and lyrics, and they're actually pretty good lyrics, far more in depth and interesting than most of what we had to suffer through on Reign of Light. They still fall into that ambiguous, humanist perspective, but the imagery conjured is more complex and compelling than the preachy, let's all hold hands minimalist pap they had been spouting for a few years. Musically, it's throbbing electronic mid-paced stuff which is not unlike Reign of Light sans any of the heavier guitars...they exist here in a cheesy, sampled capacity, but they're nothing more than a chord or harmonic used as percussive backdrop for the lightning rod synthesizer lines. I'd compare it to Theater of Tragedy (Musique, Assembly) without the ethereal, cute female vocals and walls of guitar. Vorph's vocals have a monotonous, dorky consistency to them here not unlike Raymond's lines, robotic and solemn like you'd hear from a bunch of German EBM/New Hardness industrial. It either works ("Night Ride") or does not work ("Universal Soul"), depending on how well the vocals and central pulse figure into the backing ambiance and cosmical electric atmosphere. Oftentimes, when Vorph is trying to sing cleanly in a higher pitch ("Voyage"), it just collapses into hilarity, a mentally challenged version of Tiamat's Johan Edlund in which the pronunciation gets in the way of taking it seriously...

In Summary: ecstasy popping Samael for Euro-ravers, after hours at ski lodges where one employee sneaks his manager's key to let a bunch of freaky friends in. The Samael guys, trying to distance themselves as far as possible from their 80s and 90s legacy of excellence, show up for a few drinks and to look smug and handsome among the younger attendees. Nocturnal Alp clubbing.

The experimentation works FAR BETTER on the second disc, Lesson in Magick #1 which should have been released under the Xytras name. This content moves at a generally consistent pace with the first half of the release, but it's got sweet, throbbing electro bass lines, glimmering cascades of ambient starfall and pulsing arpeggios that convey elegance, machinery and mystique in even measures. Basically it's Xytras doting on his Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis influences and adding a subtext of his considerable talents at beats and orchestration which made records like Passage and Eternal so delightful. A little of The Orb in here, too, and this stuff would make a solid score for a futuristic video game platformer/shooter. I like that there is a good balance of calm and intensity among these tracks. In fact, Lesson in Magick #1 is good enough that I half wish to throw out the first disc so that it doesn't stain the experience when I crack open the CD case...tunes like "Flying High", "Red Unction" and "One With Everything" are simple but well made excursions into that turn of that spiffy, turn of the century FutureVision. I could put this on when I'm playing Android: Netrunner or re-reading Neuromancer for the umpteenth time.

Post-Summary: If you can get this on the cheap, and you love some of the electronica influences I've ascribed to Xytras, then pick it up solely for the second disc. I can't imagine who the first half could appeal to except for some really confused EBM goths whose incursions into metal music go no further than Samael, Moonspell and Nightwish...and stand in denial that the Swiss had fallen off the deep end, not to re-emerge until their hard hitting 'comeback which is not a comeback' Above in the year 2009

Verdict: Summary Indifference [6/10], Constituent Horror [4/10] and Delight [8/10]

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Exodus EP (1998)

Being that there was next to no possibility of topping Passage (then and forevermore, apparently), Samael did the next best thing by releasing outtakes from those recording sessions as their own short form product to tide the audience over until a real followup could be produced. Exodus arrived to little fanfare and has since not generated any, and it's not hard to tell why: the songs here, while obviously similar to Passage and belonging to that same fertile, lunar creative streak, would have really weakened the album and demoted it from being 100% memorable. That's not to say the stuff here is poorly written or executed, in fact most of the tunes are better than what they'd produce for the Reign of Light album, but they clearly lack the compelling hooks and glorious Xytras orchestration to match their peers.

Half of the material, however, is merely re-recorded and re-configured from the Ceremony of Opposites album, not to mention the Rebellion EP, which is ironic because that release itself also had some re-recordings. Essentially they've tried to clean up "Ceremony of Opposites" and "Son of Earth", "From Malkuth to Kether" and tacked on an instrumental track drawn from the "Static Journey" pieces. So the majority of Exodus is just a retread, and not a particularly necessary or good one. The only value here would come down to the three tracks that might have otherwise ended up on Passage. Of these, the titular "Exodus" has enough strength and originality to its riff-craft that it wouldn't have stunk up the full-length too much, but there are rhythmic cues in there that would have seemed redundant to other cuts like "Rain". Still, the organs sound fine, the rhythm guitars churn along with strong enough, memorable note progressions, and Vorph and the drum programming both deliver with the same strength as their masterpiece.

"Tribes of Cain" is not far behind, creating a warlike pacing to it that once again would have suffered on Passage due to its aesthetic proximity to "Jupiterian Vibe". Again, the guitars are not at all throwaways, and the organ tones really tap into that cosmic, mythic pulse, but it's just not a song which continues to replay itself through my memory time and time again. If I was desperate for an analog to the material I already owned, it would suffice. Lastly, "Winter Solstice"...and you will not be surprised that this is just too similar to another Passage tune to include it, in this case the brilliant "Moonskin" which haunts and delights me to this day. A calmer pace, synthesizer pianos driving much of the action while Vorphalack spews his seductive poetry. The lyrics are quite similar to "Moonskin" but nowhere near as beautiful, and musically it's not even a fraction as memorable. So this all really illustrates why these selections were wisely shelved and not included alongside their betters...until, of course, the EP would later be reissued on Passage itself (bad move) much like Rebellion was joined with Ceremony of Opposites...

If you have that version, well then I apologize, because surely this material tarnishes the perfect progression of that album's track list. Do try to ignore it, but captured in its own environment, this really isn't so bad. The first two songs are far more interesting than the rest, but at least it's not just a shit mCD single like they'd put out for some of their later albums.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10] (remember the gate you got in)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Rebellion EP (1995)

Rebellion is at the very least an interesting little median between Samael's strongest albums, a relic from a time when most bands still seemed to care about releasing short-form works that had some unique content and genuine value. At the time it was easily the most experimental and varied of their recordings, if only because they saw fit to really test the waters beyond metal with some of Xytras' evocative, ritualistic ambient music with beats (something they'd further extrapolate with Era One/Lessons in Magick #1). But I also remember this for its iconic serpentine yin-yang cover imagery and for having a few pretty decent, harder hitting tunes which mark that transition from Ceremony of Opposites to the sheer brilliance which lay just past it...

Of course, two of these are the re-recordings of older tunes, "After the Sepulture" and "Into the Pentagram", which I'm sure somehow infuriated someone, but strangely did not suffer from being given a Passage-like makeover with the upgraded production. Not that I have a huge problem with the original incarnations, but these are crafted well enough that I can't say I'd mind if the process was applied to a bunch of their other seminal material. The bass and vocal effects sound superb, the rhythm guitar tone meatier (ala Ceremony) and the melodies and atmosphere really ramped up. The other heavy piece here is "Rebellion" itself, a rousing piece which canters along with the same, menacing and grooving cadence present on Ceremony only with the synthesizers creating that cosmic mystique which so enamored me to the following album. I'll say it: when I first experienced the EP, that was my hands down favorite tune of the band's career up to its day, but I've since retrogressed to enjoying a few of its predecessors more ("Baphomet's Throne", "Black Trip", etc). Still, really dig some of the unexpected progressions in the keyboards, and it still sounds bad ass.

The EP is rounded out with a cover of Alice Cooper's "I Love the Dead" which is integrated rather well into the Samael sound. Hearing Vorphalack's goofy rasp hit the melody in the chorus is admittedly quite hilarious. That tune always reminded me of high school, but can you imagine showing up to Prom with this guy? Inverted crucifix in his cumberbun?! Lastly there are the two versions of "Static Journey", the first of which feels like an electrified Dead Can Dance, all martial bombast and synthetic industrial sounds used to convey an almost Predator-like threat that develops along an axis of clanking pipe-work and even a pulsing, inevitable techno beat. Basically this tune sets up the instrumental/alternate version of Passage, and the hidden version at the end of the disc features Vorph doing his best Laibach/Das Ich impression to boot. Again, a little unintentionally silly sounding, but still pretty excellent (the instrumental take in particular).

These days, this is conveniently attached to the 2001 CD reissue of Ceremony of Opposites, and I think aesthetically it matches up pretty well with the content of that full-length, but even in its original format this was not at all a waste of money for any Samael fan who was content to follow the group's gradual transformation. Considering the promotional detritus maxi-singles they'd put out for future efforts, this one had the courtesy of standing on its own two feet, even if one of those feet was re-recorded/cover material. I still break it out from time to time, though it's obviously wanting when compared to its immediate full-length neighbors.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (instinct is not the path of man)

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Samael - Ceremony of Opposites (1994)

For quite a few folks I know, Ceremony of Opposites is the point at which first contact was made with the music of Samael, and thus it cultivates a level of nostalgia that subsequent recordings might not ever have been able to generate. I can't say I share this sentiment, but it is easily the first album they released upon which the Swiss had truly come up with a distinct sound. It's probably also where a lot of the heretic-burning 'underground or die' pundits also fell off the wagon, for even though the band had been pretty simple up to its manifestation, this was a whole new level of accessibility and base riffing which eschewed any notion of complexity or raw, obscure malevolence. But fuck if this wasn't/isn't unique! In fact, despite a few of the band's own impersonators, and perhaps Therion's more Gothic/death oriented Lepaca Kliffoth, I can't think of much else I've heard over the course of tens of thousands, decades worth of CDs, which is much the same...pieces, perhaps, but not in full.

It's undoubtedly controversial to purists that one might label this 'black metal' at all, but at the core of the experience, that is what manifests; it simply exists as a stark contrast to what many of the band's Scandinavian peers were generating with a shift to tremolo-picked riffing, technicality and speed (Emperor, Immortal, Enslaved, etc). Instead, this is plodding, moderately paced warlike black metal with a lot of grooving hooks and warmer melodic chord progressions, so simplistic that at several points, when first experiencing the album, I wondered why half the riffs hadn't been written before. Here you also get a little more priority placed on the synthesizer elements, which prior had served largely for intros, interludes and instrumentals but would ingrain themselves into one of the most fundamental pieces of the band's sound. Ceremony of Opposites certainly takes its cues from the sophomore Blood Ritual, and you can clearly hear how this serves as a prototype for the albums to follow, but it also really stands on its own as a sort of 'gateway drug' into the band's evolving style, not to mention a swan song for the stricter adherence to occult-based lyrics which dominated the earlier catalog. Not, not my favorite Samael, but as a runner up, it will more than suffice.

Songs trend towards shorter, pop and rock-length structures which maintain a steady procession of new and intriguing content, but at the same time wrap up the record tightly in 36 minutes. Almost are the songs are equally mesmerizing and yet have an interlinked quality about them that generates the same aesthetic of some pompous infernal army marching through a nocturnal battlefield with their chests puffed out, horns polished and sharpened and ghastly standards unfurled. We're still hearing a lot of those base thrash and death metal elements in the chord patterns, but the rhythm guitars just have this memorable flow to them ("Black Trip", "Celebration of the Fourth", etc) which grooves on the conscience. Don't be mistaken, as I mentioned earlier, it does show a further proclivity towards symphonic arrangements, but this is very much a guitar record, because without those unshakeable chords, wrought in a loud, simultaneously blunt and spiked distortion (like a morningstar of post- modernized Hellhammer tone), grinding up against Vorphalack's nihilistic barking, this would fall completely fat. There are a few tunes later on in the track listing where the guitars do seem to revert a little more towards the style of the earlier albums, and these represent the least compelling moments of the experience, but even there they have that chunky predisposition for throwing out a catchy death metal line ("To Our Martyrs" bridge).

The bass playing is also a titanic improvement over Blood Ritual and Worship Him, not because it's more technical or involved, but because of its thick, syrupy texture to it which becomes important in propelling the percussion and forging out its own path; even when the lines are super minimalistic accompaniment for the pulse of the kick drum. The beats in general are exceedingly bare, rock oriented with the added weight of a few double bass patterns and muscular fills, and frankly nothing more intense or busy would really fit this set of tunes, but strangely enough they're not as effective as the programmed stuff on the followup album. Probably because this relies just so heavily on the listener's attention to those guitars, but there are instances like "Baphomet's Throne" where they fit incredibly well with the sampled horns. Most of the synth lines here are actually divided between choirs and horns, so it maintains a marginal nod to the exotic Celtic Frost influence (To Mega Therion). I wouldn't say they were quite as developed as they'd become on the next pair of full length albums, nor as essential, and even mildly 'cheesy' in nature, but it adds just a crucial fraction of atmosphere which rounds Ceremony out as something 'greater' and/or 'deeper' than the debut.

The lyrics, on the other hand, are fucking brilliant when paired up against either of the prior records, with plenty of quotable lines for listeners who can relate to the band's narcissistic mysticism, night sky fascinating and occult devotion. They've saved the best of this for last. Passage does possess a few logical throwbacks to similar themes, but I found that more deeply poetic, personal and broadly appealing in terms of its flow of imagery. At any rate, this and that album represent the pinnacle of the prose, since they'd eventually start penning drivel which came off like they were supposed to be the metal version of the Universal Unitarian Church or some tripe. Here, you can just revel in the evil, the masquerading about in human skin, the blood red seductions and the greater picture of the encroaching endtimes embedded in Samael's collective imagination. "Black Trip", "Flagellation", "Celebration of the Fourth" and "Son of Earth" are all particularly poignant, but not one tune here really lags behind in this regard.

First two albums: great. This one: the first bonafide classic in their repertoire. Tightly balanced between eloquence and barbarity. Simple riffs masquing complicated themes. Hidden beneath every groove, every structure, every rough-shod synthesizer, a Dark Prince leering at the listener. Hail the Goddamn Devil. Roil with the Flesh and Earth. One last time, before the call of the Cosmos.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (there in I plunge)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Aeonics - An Anthology (2007)

If Aeonics wasn't inevitable, then I don't know what is. Like other 'top shelf' metal record labels (Roadrunner, for example), Century Media has a history, especially over the last 10-15 years, of putting together anthologies of reprinted material to lure in suckers (i.e. listeners new to the band, or utter completionsts). They even tried to get me on the hook by visually stimulating the simplistic celestial body cover imagery that so worked for their masterpiece Passage. Of course, this is no simple cash in, on the very word of the label itself: This album is not a simple cash-in Best-Of CD, but a sophisticatedly and carefully arranged collection of musical milestones spanning SAMAEL’s entire career. The album contains 19 tracks (clocking for over 79 minutes), which as a whole transport all the uniqueness of this black & gothic metal pioneers. Sold, guys! I'll take two copies, in case I wear one out...

Sure, it comes packed with a big pictorial booklet and was assembled in collaboration with the band, but it's nothing more than songs picked off previous products, and in many cases not even working together in unison. For instance, I can't envision how their electronic/experimental stuff off Era One/ Lessons in Magic #1 necessarily fits in with the rest, being that it wasn't originally going to be put out under the band's name, and it's surely not going to give a prospective listener an accurate picture of what the band is generally all about. There are loads of amazing songs here, don't get me wrong, but "Moonskin" and "Rain" are best experienced with Passage, and the same goes for the rest. By taking and transplanting these few tunes from their original contexts you are almost teasing the hypothetical that they're 'best of', which is not necessarily the case for the Passage, Blood Ritual or Ceremony of Opposites material and these are all albums that need to be experienced in full to properly appreciate. Even Worship Him deserves that level of attention, so I feel confident in saying that Aeonics doesn't even have enough heft to serve as a door stopper.

It's also a missed opportunity, because instead of just squeezing a career anthology onto a single 80 minute disc, they could have had a 2-3 disc treatment, with perhaps an album of all the band's demo content, a live set, a collection of covers, electronic/symphonic remakes of older tunes (like the disc Xytras did of Passage without the metal elements), or even just remastered or recorded songs that bring the earlier, crude stuff up to speed with the latest material. Granted, purists tend to loathe such things, and I'm often one of them, but ANYTHING except photographer credits to exhibit that some effort was placed into this, some love for the band's fans, going above and beyond to give them something extra...a true and proper celebration of the Swiss band's career, which was, at least for the first decade and change, a truly wonderful and magnanimous musical evolution. But, no, we've got a product that might have just been some label intern randomly handed a stack of Samael CDs and told to pick out and randomly distribute tunes into an arbitrary track order that I assume was meant to fabricate some 'emotional' strength...but really doesn't anymore than my IPod 'shuffle' function. I do like the artwork and the booklet, its sleek and stylish and oh so metro-Samael, but what if this had just been a new album, dropping the 'subtitle' of 'An Anthology' and presenting us with Passage II (they'd do this later, but one can imagine). Anyway, enough of my pipe dreams...if you have any intention of buying this, strike yourself in the temple hard with a blunt object. Otherwise, I shepherd thee back to sample and/or purchase the first five albums and leave it at that.

Verdict: Epic Fail [.25/10]

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - On Earth EP (2005)

...and onto part two of my three part series on Samael's most useless recordings, the On Earth EP was the second and I believe last such release to come out through the Swiss group's own label, called Galactical. One would have hoped to hear a lot more of their experimental recordings and side-projects through this imprint, but they were rather quick to call it a day in just about two years time, and if it was just going to end up an outlet for maxi singles such as Telepath and On Earth, we can be thankful. Granted, this one pretends to have a little more meat to it than its predecessor, if only because it avoids the 'karaoke' single/EP tag, and features a few tunes you weren't going to find on Reign of Light whatsoever. Joyous day.

"On Earth" itself is a direct continuation of the style from Passage and Eternal, mid paced, darkly and cosmically industrial; only Vorph's vocals are more pronounced and robotic. Like much of the album it hails form, the guitars are more or less regressions towards patterns the band had already written for the prior full-lengths, even if the precise notes are different, there's a lot of reliance on heavy, simple chords that follow the beat. This also suffers from the 'worldly syndrome', like they basically list off a bunch of cities in which their fans live, so we can all just be a big and happy fucking family. What the FUCK, Samael?! Why did you have to go all hippy on us? One world? Our world? What is this, a lost Michael Jackson tape? At any rate, the lyrics basically abolish any real chance of me taking this tune seriously, but if not for that then it would be a semi-serviceable Passage outtake that would have felt as if it were scrapped for other, genuinely excellent songs. I'm not averse to that positive, Romantic undercurrent Samael tapped into for their 21st century stuff, but it doesn't really excuse the shoddy and underwhelming songwriting.

As with the "Telepath" treatment on the prior EP, the remix of "On Earth" here is laughable at best, not danceable enough for the Euro EBM/Goth metallers who might care, and not harsher enough for the long since lost Samael fanbase off the first few albums. "Auf der Erde" is a German lyric version of the title track, and while it might benefit from the vocals sounding less dopey to those who can't speak the language, it's otherwise the same (i.e. the cities listed off). So really the only hope for the disc is the cover of Depeche Mode's "I Feel You", and in this too they fail, because hearing Vorph's sustained growls over an excessively industrialized rendition of the original with some spacier sounding guitars is incredibly goofy. Where Moonspell did a pretty kickass cover of "Sacred" that I still listen to, Samael's attempt fails to ever really launch, even if the pairing does make some sort of sense. But as lackluster my reaction, I would be remiss not to admit that this was the most entertaining point of the EP...the video for "Telepath" is included, but is nothing more than Vorph standing around, looking 'cool'...ugh. Anyway, the cover image is tacky (with that gold tinged logo...), the music is not good, just put it on the demolition list along with its predecessor.

Verdict: Fail [2.5/10] (dancing with the hidden tribe)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Telepath EP (2004)

Telepath is the sort of redundant waste of molecules I always rue seeing from my favorite acts, and yet by 2004, Samael had long been a band established enough that both labels and their own personal enterprises would attempt to con some of the audience for just a little extra scratch. What we have here is essentially what I dub a 'karaoke EP', with a number of tunes lifted directly from an upcoming full-length studio album and then mimicked with their own instrumental versions. "Telepath" is actually represented on this three times, the third being a remix of an already electronically propulsed techno/black metal track, but honestly there's just no fucking reason to have this unless you REALLY want to karaoke to "Telepath" and "Inch'Allah" with your friends at a faux-vampire key party in the comfort of your own posh living room...

I'll go into the studio tracks more with a review of Reign of Light, but "Telepath" more or less tries to grasp at the mystique of Samael's brilliant Passage record (and its followup Eternal) but apply it to a more directly danceable beat, which ironically has a bit of a Gothic/Middle Eastern mashup feel to it adorned in Vorph's salacious grumbles and some baseline chugging. Ironic because you'd expect that out of the song called "Inch'Allah", but wait...that track does it too, only the throbbing beat is affixed with some of the synthesizers the band used so well on Passage. The issue I have here is not simply one of style...I was fully willing to follow this Swiss band almost anywhere, but only that their sense of exploration has been dampened, cheapened for the Euro-goth in the corset on the dance floor and no longer a poetic light on the edge of an infinite span of darkness (i.e. Passage). The riffs in these two tunes are quite lacking, with or without the vocals, as presented, and they seem to have slowly gone from truly compelling guitar lines to banal bouncing chugs circa Rammstein. The remix is so bloody uninspired that I had long forgotten it was even here...

This was all mixed with pretty cutting edge audio and it might hold some appeal for that reason, but since the material is very much redundant with Reign of Light, a 'sinker' of an album which I for some reason enjoyed for a few months and then totally turned traitor towards, I can see no viable benefit to owning it beyond the aforementioned desire to bark out Vorph's lyrics yourself. The lyrics to the tune "Telepath", which I'll complain about at length elsewhere, are the sort of insincere, implausible sorts of 'positive outreach' affirmation ravings that you'd expect from a self-help tape, and sound incredibly cheesy coming from a band that used to sing about Satan and horror and evil on their first few discs. But I'd forgive that if the music was good...it just doesn't hold up, and not solely because of the aesthetic choices, but because the majority of the riffs and vocals are mundane and have little of the emotional gravitas I once felt so strongly from their music. Avoid this, and if you happen to see a copy of the digipack out in the wild, give it a swift kick for me.

Verdict: Fail [2.25/10] (format our comprehension)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Blood Ritual (1992)

Blood Ritual was my first experience with Samael. It must have been around the time I was 18-19, and the black metal selection here was still fairly limited; beyond Bathory and Darkthrone there were only a handful of albums I owned in the style, and while I might have read a snippet or two from a zine about this Swiss band, I purchased the tape largely on the strength of Axel Hermann's cover artwork and the fact I was digging into those early Century Media releases/licenses with a passion. It was around the same time I was first checking out bands like Tiamat, Asphyx and Despair, but among all of those, I recall having the strongest reaction to this particular album, which in retrospect is a solid step above the debut Worship Him in every conceivable department with the exception of possibly 'cult importance'. Note that I'm not exempting myself from that consideration, since the personality of the debut easily precludes it from the near-mediocrity of its riffing, but Blood Ritual even gets that right.

This is probably the last of Samael's recordings to heavily feature the influence of their countrymen Celtic Frost/Hellhammer, contorted into an evil and grainy guitar tone that is immediately more appealing to me than the dryer, reverbed rhythm guitars on Worship Him. Construction of the chords and chugged mutes here is not only flavored with a mildly more unpredictable, vile sense of purpose which embraces a slightly more black/thrash balance than on the prior album, which was overtly a marriage of heavy/doom metal with the emergent black metal of Europe. Don't worry, there are still strong traces of that style here, on plodding tunes like "Macabre Operetta" which almost feel like outtakes from the debut, but even there the riffing, while predictable has a richer sense to it through the tone, and the slightly better bass lines support the guitars. Blood Ritual also maintains that steady, warlike pacing akin to Bathory and Barathrum, but tunes like "Beyond the Nothingness" and the title track definitely bring out a stronger presence of inspirations like Slayer and Obituary, with the rich palm muting, evil dynamics and potential to occasionally explode into a faster, pent up rage falling somewhere between the more plebeian Teutonic and Bay Area thrash 6-8 years prior. They don't stick or sink every riff on the thing, but the tunes are better balanced, more melodic and I certainly find it easier to recount them on an individual basis than the band's 80s-penned material.

One other area where the sophomore exceeds its forebear is in Xytras' growing abilities in sheer composition. Piano and ambient interludes abound here, offering deeper immersion into the nihilism and blasphemy which compels the lyrics. This is an important foreshadowing for most of the future albums in their catalog, specifically the next two after this, which for me represent the band' creative and qualitative summit. But due to the clear, superior production, the cleaner instruments really mesh well into the heavier pieces, which don't rely so much on atmosphere to squeeze by, but the richness and polish and warlike confidence of numbers like "With the Gleam of the Torches", "Beyond the Nothingness", or "After the Sepulture" which I'm led to believe is probably the most popular single tune from this disc. While I would define Blood Ritual as blackened, simplistic thrash with a lot of emphasis on the rhythm instruments and regal/infernal bombast, it also offers a slightly less bestial, messy and incendiary vision of the style than a lot of the other stuff which was coming out through labels like Osmose. This is a disc which almost always takes its time, allowing Vorphalack's hybrid of rasping and growling to offer more of a narrative context than raving lunacy.

Consistent enough that I find it somewhat difficult to choose favorites, this shares with the debut that sense of  timelessness. It's quite rudimentary, fundamental, and I can't imagine it could benefit from having a more contemporary production upgrade. Ironically, a band that often reminds me of this period of Samael is Triptykon, who often writes what in this era feel like pretty bland riffs, steeped in this crushing, massive modern tone which explains about 90% of hype for it. Tom G. Warrior seems to have taken a page from the very band that emulated his own alma maters, but despite the lack of age and rust upon this thing, I'm not sure the riffs here would be quite so interesting had Blood Ritual come out in the 21st century. For its day, this was a rather unique recording...apart from the Greeks, and a few crude American acts, much of black metal was heading in a more accelerated and intricate direction. Samael shared some of the symphonic inspirations with several of the German and Scandinavian second wavers, but how they structured the riffs and grooves in their material was more distinctly linked to that lumbering low-fi thrash and speed metal of the 80s. Blood Ritual would soon be eclipsed by the excellence of the band's continued developments, but this still remains one of their finest albums, and easily the best looking.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (where suffering is the only satisfaction)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Worship Him (1991)

Worship Him is aesthetically the full-length expansion to the style of the Medieval Prophecy EP, but the intervening years had been put to good use in prepping that and newer material for a higher production value that would, in my estimation, render it far more effective and resonant. We're still hearing what ranks among the crudest of Samael's content, but it's refined to the point that it doesn't sound like a suffocated soundboard demo from a rather mediocre rehearsal room session. This is also the most distinctly 'black metal' of their records, obvious with the daemonic cover art and occult/horror lyrical content, but I should qualify that a little further, for these Swiss did not exactly walk the same left hand path as so many of their European counterparts...

Whereas might find, in the evolution of Greek black metal, a huge influence of melodic heavy metal riffs on the older recordings of Rotting Christ, meshed in with the darker lyrical themes and harsh vocals, so too do they appear here, only they feel more strictly chord-based, like the dirtier early 80s stuff by Manowar, Witchfinder General or other legends who weren't always known for having the best of production. Burly, driving chord progressions that teeter on the predictable, but where these guys deviate is in their huge Hellhammer influence. We might argue that if anyone had a right to ape Tom G. Warrior's seminal extremity, it was his own countrymen, though by this time Darkthrone had already been shifting in this direction. That said, where Fenriz and N. Culto took those primal grooves, distorted and froze them beneath a winter moon, Vorphalack plays a lot more cleanly, with some fairly obvious riff choices even for their day (even for the late 80s). So, to an extent, I have to say I always found the guitars on this record to be among the least compelling of Samael's career, but Worship Him compensates with its slight sense of novelty...for 1991, this was pretty fucking fresh and diabolic sounding even if you couldn't get past the 50/50 hit/miss ratio of the guitars.

But definitely some heavy metal here, some of that Hellhammer/Celtic Frost primordial doom and drudge-thrash with some occasional forays into a mid-to-fast pace more reflective of what most other trailblazing black metal acts were producing (i.e. "The Black Face"). The drums were rarely 'extreme', more of a steady barrage of simple beats or double-kick batteries that supported the obsidian bluntness of the chords, with a handful of warlike cadences that I found eerily reminiscent of material from Bathory's classics Under the Sign of the Black Mark and Blood Fire Death (like those breaks in "Knowledge of the Iron Kingdom" which remind me of the title track to the latter). Masmiseîm's bass lines here are largely unimpressive, following along dully to the rhythm guitar cards with an occasional, but at least the tone helps to fatten up the slower, doomed riffing sequences. The rhythm guitar tone is not too saturated, almost at times like early Candlemass with a little more flange or reverb, some snail paced chugging, but despite the baseness of the composition they still manage to sound quite evil more often than not, because it just has no sense of foundation of melody, warmth or friendliness anywhere. Just a steady, damned march into the abyssal pits...the most peppy this gets is the vile thrashiness of a tune like "Morbid Metal".

Vorphalack really ties this all together with his snarl, and the guy has always surprised me, because in reality he has one of the least pronounced, occasionally garbled sounding harsh vocals in all that old wave of black metal. He doesn't have a ton of sustain to his rasp, nor is he the most wretched or sinister, but there's this sort of messy, 'no-fucks-given' inflection in his reverbed barks which almost makes Samael feel like some sort of snotty, highbrow black metal ritual, and I do not at all mean that as anything other than a compliment. The album speaks to me as if it's 'better than me' without the band ever even giving a fuck or trying too hard, especially as half the lyrics are depressingly simple (like the title track itself with its repetitious lines of "He is.../he is..."). Not sure if that will make much sense to anyone, but it ultimately contributes a charming, sadistic personality to what is often a fairly barebones and commonplace set of riffs exploring the more layman hybridization of black and doom, a natural extension of Hellhammer's morbidity after Celtic Frost had already more or less folded post glam-phase.

Now, this wasn't my first Samael full-length, instead one step in reverse, and it did take me some time to develop any appreciation, because in the early 90s I was still so heavily focused on the brilliance and intricacy of well-written thrash, death and power metal riffing that a lot of these slower, atmospheric-dependent records were not showpieces in my personal wheelhouse. Amazingly, this one seems to only grow more effective with age, not that it's amongst my favorite or even my half dozen favorites in this band's canon, but there's just something supremely pure and puerile about it that I can still lose myself in after so many years. The weird little touches like the ambient interlude "Last Benediction" or the pure doom instrumental "Rite of Cthulhu" only add to the gloomy, black magic aesthetic pulsing through the songwriting of the longer metal tracks. In the end, this is just one of those flawed, beloved black & white cult classics of its style...not nearly the masterpiece some stingy genre purists would paint, but an unassailable transition between the 'first wave' of European black metal (which wasn't really black metal as we know it) and the acts that would evolve that diversified darkness into its own established medium.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (he is the hangman's rope)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Medieval Prophecy EP (1988)

Now this is a tough one, because on the one hand, Medieval Prophecy is the nastiest shit Samael has ever recorded. On the other, the 'shit' unfortunately extends to its production and songwriting values; not that these particular tunes don't lend themselves pretty well to their respective re-recordings (on the debut album), but here in this most primal of forms they are nothing more than a glorified demo which sounds like arse, with just two original tunes and one more that represents their chief influence and countrymen (Hellhammer), but is performed with such primacy that you don't feel all that different than when listening to Tom G. Warrior and crew demo it...

I'm sure there is a stingy minority out there which feels as if this EP is the greatest thing the Swiss have ever recorded, but I'm inclined to disagree based on the fact that the drums sound like shit, the guitars aren't much better, and the only real standout is in hearing Vorphalack spit out the gnarliest conventional black metal rasps of his entire career. As an example of uncompromising, atavistic black metal, Medieval Prophecy has very few peers...Bathory and Deathcrush, but both of those actually exceeded this then-duo's compositional ability by leagues, and where the crude mix might have worked wonders for the Mayhem EP, it actually cripples Samael completely. The chord patterns are already so simplistic and uninvolved that making them sound like two 12 year olds down the block recorded them in one of their dad's sheds just reeks too highly of amateur hour. Yeah, yeah, it's so misanthropic and rebellious and REAL, man...but ultimately just too impetuous and raunchy.

The style here was more or less a prehistoric concoction of black and doom metal with more than a passing nod to Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, only with any of that group's eclectic nature stripped to a primordial, sickening occult core. Chord, rasp, chord, rasp, into damnation. The Satanic, zealous lyrics (of "Into the Pentagram") seem several orders of magnitude more advanced than the musical ability, but that's not saying a whole lot. Riffs have hooks in them, but only the sort that slowly and gradually creep upon you, thanks to how drawn out the first cut feels. It's atmospheric mainly to the extent of its rawness, and how it takes its sweet time getting anywhere, but also there are superficial flourishes due to the cleaner, affected guitars wound through "The Dark". In both cases, I have an infinite preference for the more polished renditions on Worship Him, not only because are given more room to breathe in the less suffocated non-mix, but also because I rather think Vorph has a more distinct and unusual vocal bark there. Medieval Prophecy is sort of charming, at times, but I'm not surprised that the band themselves would take the necessary steps towards professionalism.

Of course, having the original of this 7" provides bragging rights for those concerned with their early bird status in the black metal audience; there's an inherent, collectible nature to the EP, with the black and white artwork on both the original and (superior on the) second pressing, and such releases will always maintain a following who treasure them, but in terms of pure enjoyment, I find this somewhat lacking. It's evil as fuck, sure, but I'd say that was largely by the mistake of the recording sounding so swollen and uneven and not something Vorph and Xytras had really mapped out in advance. Still, you wanna hear a band travel a long way, it's interesting to compare this to their later, industrial infused, life affirming lyrical content. Some will favor the humble roots, but I was always a bigger fan of the band the further they got from Earth...well, not TOO far from Earth, but drifting in close proximity. Hint, hint.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10] (paralysed by the anguish of a new day)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Lux Mundi (2011)

Having long harbored an obsequious deference towards Samael's 1996 epic Passage, I have eagerly awaited, with each new album in the band's repertoire, a return to that cosmic plateau of songwriting capability. Through Exodus, through Reign of Light, and then the lacking Solar Soul, the the subtext might not have changed from the Swiss band's electronic/dark metal hybrid, but the returns seemed to diminish as the band would foray into goofier vocals and betrayed potential, all in the name of crass experimentation. Enter Above, the band's last album, and there was a slight angling back towards the path of greatness they once strode mightily upon. It was a heavy album, the heaviest since their formative black metal years, and an enjoyable one, but I could not help but feel something was missing...

Only to be 'found' for Lux Mundi. No, the 8th full-length is not precisely the long awaited return to flawless, iconic composition that I was crossing my fingers for this past decade, but it's about as close as the band has yet come to Passage. A number of the tracks cautiously merge the stomping gallantry of the primal metallic guitar patterns with the extra-terrestrial, ethereal use of choirs and symphonic components that converge upon Vorphalack's garbled prose like alien shadows, backed by an even more realistic feel to the drum programming. No, these are not compositions with the immortal capacity of a "Jupiterian Vibe", "Moonskin", "Rain" or "Shining Kingdom", but you'd be surprised just how close they come in terms of overall atmospheric aesthetic. Pieces like the bombastic "Of War" or "In the Deep" and it's harmonic plucking come startlingly close in theme, riven with crushing philosophical weight in contrast to the beautiful, interstellar aspersions cast through Xytras' keyboards.

There are a few mildly lighter, accessible tracks ("The Shadow of the Sword", "In Gold We Trust") interspersed among the heavier fare that should thrill devotees of Reign of Light or Eternal, only threaded with a greater perceptible ballast. But the majority seem to have a martial pattern to them which recounts "Jupiterian Vibe", with lots of jarring chugs and militant swells that satisfy the listener's sense of wonder and belligerence. To an extent, Lux Mundi does feel like a regression, as if the band were coming full circle towards stretches of space that they had previously saturated in sound, but this is only harmful if you loathed the band's 1994-99 body of work, which I clearly did not. This is at least the best the band has written since its divisive Eternal, and in truth it's better mixed and more muscular sounding. The album feels quite a lot like greeting an old friend through an airlock, the landing bay behind him cast in the glow of a crescent planetary body and manifold of distant stars. Permission to come aboard? Permission granted. Well done. Welcome back. Take off your space suit and stay awhile.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Antigod EP (2010)

Even though its quality would not match some of the band's heights, it was good to hear Samael return to a more aggressive form with their latest album Above. Sure, it tended to suffer from some sameness in the compositions, and wouldn't exactly earn the Swiss veterans a new audience, but it was nonetheless a potent statement that the band had not forgotten where they had originated, without abandoning the electronic urges that have driven them for the past 15 years. Antigod is an EP and fan package with a mix of the old and new, and though it ultimately has little appeal to those who don't feel like supporting the band with a few hard-earned dollars, there is at least one thing here worth being excited for...

That one thing is "Antigod" itself, which is the closest the band have come to their masterpiece, 1996's Passage, which must be hands down one of my favorite metal albums ever. Dark and martial synthesizers congregate behind a chugged cosmos of thrashing guitars, a procession of ghastly infernal worlds soaring past the psyche much like the band's classics. Granted, it's not got the chorus of a "Shining Kingdom" or "Jupiterian Vibe", but it does conjure that same sense of wonder. There is also a pure industrial alternative to the title track called the "Dark Night Mix", which isn't bad, though it does not demand the same level of attention as the original. Long time fans will be happy to see that the band have re-recorded "Into the Pentagram", from their classic Medieval Prophecy EP, giving it the same modern, atmospheric spin as their recent efforts. I'm not sure if pundits will take pleasure in it, but it does function to an extent.

So as not to ignore the past decade, the two live cuts included both draw on their 21st century material: "Reign of Light" from the album of the same name, and "Slavocracy" from Solar Soul. Naturally I'd have preferred something from Ceremony of Opposites or Passage, but I'll have to admit that both of the tracks sound pretty solid in the live setting, and I can sense a conjunction and consistency with material from the mid 90s on. There's one other track included, a sinister epic Xytras piece called "Ten Thousand Years" which will likely thrill fans of his instrumental alternative Passage recording, and essentially a Castlevania soundtrack from space. In all, there is a fair amount of value here for any diehard, but the centerpiece is clearly "Antigod", and if this marks some regression back to the band's brilliant career eaves, I'm all for it.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10] (faith is alive when reason is dead)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Samael - Above (2009)

Samael have been on a tear in the past few years, but to be honest they've been producing the type of albums that only the dedicated fanbase would be able to appreciate. Fused with elements of pop, electro and even a kind of rappy vibe, Vorph's vocals were just growing stranger and stranger. Their last album Solar Soul was quite good, but not at the level of the romantic Eternal or the monumental Passage (which remains one of my favorite metal releases of all time).

It is with some surprise that Samael have dialed back the years on their latest album, for a heavier approach reminiscent of both their black metal roots and their first few forays into synthesized gothic mayhem. It's an interesting maneuver that may put them back on the radar of dispossessed fans who abandoned the band in the early 90s, but should still appeal to those into the Romantic modernisms of the band's cosmic unity consciousness.

Above opens with the shattering "Under One Flag", a brutal number with some traces of glorious melody hinted at its fringes. "Virtual War" continues this style of Passage on Prozac. Vorph's vocals are truly back to the roots, loud in the mix, black as night but lacking a lot of the goofy but endearing phrasing they've had on the past 3-4 full lengths. "Polygames" begins even heavier than the first two tracks, but it does give itself some room to breathe with its epic, sweeping chords and synths. "Earth Country" and "Illumination" are likewise very heavy tracks for this band, but they possess a little more of the melody and anthem qualities of the previous album. The album seems to save its catchiest surprises for its latter half. "In There" is a majestic track with some galloping rhythms and desperate guitar charging. "God's Snake" is a total Passage style song, and just about as good. "On the Top of It All" is another of the best tracks on the album, with a trippy intro that soon transforms into a grinding death metal bit, and then again into some bluesier bruising leads.

If Above has a weakness, it's that the band seems to have gotten too heavy all at once. The album does not lack for consistent energetic brutality, but it's simply not as catchy as what we are accustomed to. Granted, this might be a good thing to a great many people...obviously the band wanted to deliver their fastest and heaviest offering in a good, long time. Samael is probably unlike to come up with another Passage, but Above makes a concerted effort: it simply lacks that classic album's penchant for timeless and memorable tracks. However, if you've been avoiding the band because of their poppy side for the past few albums, it may be time to re-subscribe.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.samael.info/