September 2021 Feature Release – The Sphere Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month’s feature release for The Sphere has been nominated by myself. It's the 1996 fourth album "Passage" from Swiss industrial/symphonic black metallers Samael.

https://metal.academy/releases/1669

I did my review, here's its summary:

Black metal and industrial metal were both not my thing, but the latter I look forward to expanding, now in higher chance with one of my new all-time favorite metal albums in Samael's Passage, containing the power of unique beauty! Before this, Samael was initially in the 2nd wave of black metal. I haven't heard their earlier black metal material yet, but I'm glad to start with the album where electronic keyboards overpower most of the heavy Satanism of black metal until it's practically no more... Keyboards nicely blend over the heaviness in beautiful melody, making Samael the bridge of difference between industrial metal and black metal. Those melodic keyboard passages would continue shining on in this fantastic album that I would recommend to fans of either the industrial metal of Godflesh or the symphonic black metal of Limbonic Art, or both. Again, this might just be for me one of the best industrial metal albums of space and time!

5/5

Before this, Samael was initially in the 2nd wave of black metal.

In fairness Samael predates the second wave with their debut album appearing the year before Darkthrone & Burzum heralded the dawn of a new era for black metal. It’s more accurate to suggest that Samael came at the tale end of the first wave in my opinion.

Here's my review of this great release, once again written a long time ago...

Samael certainly shocked their fans with Passage. Beginning their existence as an extremely raw and simple black metal band (as can be heard on debut Worship Him and follow-up Blood Ritual), this Swiss band had already evolved into a more intense and hard-hitting blasphemous outfit on 1994’s Ceremony of Opposites. They’d gained a lot of new fans with that release (myself included), all of which were waiting anxiously to see where this evolution would go next. 1995’s stop gap EP Rebellion should have warned us all of what might be coming with its increased use of keyboard atmospherics, not to mention an Alice Cooper cover, but this resulting full length album was still an immensely brave release. The industrial elements that had been hinted at on previous releases had been amplified dramatically, the keyboards given far greater importance, and the whole thing was seemingly designed for a mainstream audience. Surely none of these changes were going to please black metal fans!

Yet somehow, despite this huge shift in tone and sound, Passage is blatantly Samael! The heavy, simple, yet effective riffs are there, the energy the band had found on Ceremony of Opposites is if anything amped up and Vorph’s vocals still contain that accented venom we all know and love. This is most definitely the same Samael engine used to create their early albums, but the chassis it runs in is a completely upgraded, shiny new model. Samael made the correct judgement that their previous Satanic themes wouldn’t sit too well with the shift in approach and took on a more Occult / Cosmological subject matter, which is perfectly synchronized with the striking yet simple artwork that adorns the cover. The symphonic aspect is wonderfully executed, with tracks such as Liquid Soul Dimension and Moonskin driven by gripping, and in the latter’s case, beautiful keyboard work. While the focus was certainly taken away from the guitars, it’s worth noting that the band added a second guitarist for the recording, which gives the album a far bigger sound all up.

Not everything the band attempted on this album turned to gold. The programmed drums are great in general, giving the album an almost mechanical and powerful quality, but they occasionally make things a bit too sterile. The beginning of Angel’s Decay is an example of where they sound too characterless, perhaps even too clean for my liking. But 90% of the time they achieve their goal perfectly, with The Ones Who Came Before’s double bass kicking combination with dance beats displaying possibilities conventional drumming could never accomplish. Passage is an example of a band that was willing to take a risk, breaking down the restrictive boundaries that black metal fans often place on their beloved genre, and coming up with something that not only brought them a new audience, but was good enough to impress their existing fan base. If you’re into black metal, industrial metal or even gothic metal, there’s a lot to enjoy here. Highlight tracks are Rain, My Savior, The Ones Who Came Before and Moonskin.

4.5/5