| | Samael Above CD Samael Discography of CDs
 (2 Customer Reviews)
After many journeys into experimental realms, Swiss black metal veterans Samael have recorded ABOVE, a homage to their earliest influences. Though it was initially begun as a pure black metal side-project, the band instead released it under their own name, drawing a clear line from the past to the present. The lacerating riffs and relentlessly pounding drums make immediate the connection to past masters like Celtic Frost and Bathory, but there is still a disciplined, robotic edge to the proceedings that shows that they haven't totally abandoned Industrial flourishes.
Audio Mixer: Fredrik Nordström .
Recording information: Little Rock Studio, Switzerland.Kerrang (Magazine) (p.54) - "Closing track 'On The Top Of It All' is an industrial pounder and makes for a good stylistic deviation from what has come before, concluding what is a pleasingly visceral record." Samael Above Songs | 1. | Under One Flag |
| 2. | Virtual War |
| 3. | Polygames |
| 4. | Earth Country |
| 5. | Illumination |
| 6. | Black Hole |
| 7. | In There |
| 8. | Dark Side |
| 9. | God's Snake |
| 10. | On the Top of It All |
| 11. | Black Hole [Verso Mix] - (remix) |
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Above Music Review Average Rating: (3 out of 5 stars)   Should have been better
I've been a big Samael fan since "Blood Ritual," and even though the band continued to evolve in musical direction, I still found each of their following albums enjoyable. When I heard that Samael was returning to their black metal roots with "Above," I instantly got excited, expecting a upgraded "Worship Him" or "Ceremony." Upon inspection of the liner notes, I also found that the album was recorded and mixed at the fantastic studio Fredman. So with the anticipation overflowing, I hit play. It took all of 30 seconds, to realize that this release would not live up to my expectations. While the music was buzzing by in standard black metal fashion, it was not like the bands first three albums. Samael was never known as a "blast beat" black metal band, so instantly, this was not a return to form. Sadly, most of the album blazes by without much cranial retention. The vocals are so buried in the mix, I initially thought that the vocals were digital distortion within the production. The music initially appears very "stock" by todays standards. Upon further listens, I started to find that there were in fact pretty decent melodies found underneath all the mud. The problem is, is that the vocals and keys are so buried, that pulling the melodies out is nearly impossible. You almost question what you are actually hearing. To me, this is a very dull album and even with a better mix, it may have been more appealing, but still not up to the Samael standard. Lets hope that Samael leaves this album waaaaay behind them, and continues down the road they had set off on since "Passage."
Submitted by chevdaddy1 (Gwinn, MI) 
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No 1 of 2 found this helpful.
 Pretty good
Not as good as the first 3 but i definitely prefer it over their more electronic albums.
Submitted by Vinnie (USA,USA,USA)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No
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Purchase Above CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Behemoth Demigod CD (2005) Enhanced CD
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With a shockingly tight performance and a handful of evil anthems, Glen Benton and company managed to craft a death metal classic with their eponymous debut. Taking their Satanism to a new level of seriousness, Benton was burning crosses into his forehead and desecrating churches to promote this album, something that didn't exactly endear them to the mainstream metal media. While similar (and even weaker) groups were getting hyped up as the leaders of the death metal underworld, this album struck a chord that would, for good or bad, instantly inspire legions of like-minded groups. The riffs are actually memorable, with insane blastbeat drums and an uncanny sense of timing guiding the songs as they charge through one by one. "Lunatic of God's Creation" may be one of the best death metal songs written in this period, taking all of these elements to their natural extreme and crafting an ugly Satanic epic. "Carnage in the Temple of the Damned" is a speed-happy ...
| | Samael Solar Soul CD (2007)
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From crude black metal to finessed industrial electronics, Samael's long and not always smooth career path has left many fans upset and stranded by the roadside -- especially due to the erratic qualities of 1999's electro-metal hangover Eternal (a rude awakening after the euphoric genius of 1996's Passage) and the radical trip-hop departures of 2004's otherwise impressive Reign of Light. With their seventh long-player, 2007's Solar Soul, the Swiss quartet appeared to be striving to achieve some kind of historical balance between all of these disparate styles. As a result, numbers like "Promised Land," "Valkyries' New Ride," and the title track see the band re-injecting some of the analog metal elements of early-day efforts into its still thoroughly digital aesthetic, thus rendering those songs at once inventive and worthy of a good headbang. Unfortunately, another fair portion of Solar Soul's songs, ...
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Samael's long-awaited sixth album, 2004's Reign of Light, was a significant chapter in the adventurous Swiss quartet's career in that it was less a heavy metal album infused with electronic elements (like its immediate predecessors) than a trip-hop/industrial album draped in heavy metal ingredients. As such, it was actually far more successful, on its own terms, than 1999's lackluster techno-black metal exercise Eternal, but for most long-term Samael fans who had waited half a decade for this, well, the generalized uproar was, uproarious. But then, most of these fans should have known better than to expect any sort of retreat into extreme metal purity (surprisingly, that would come later), and, as mentioned earlier, Reign of Light's greatest strength lies not ...
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