Reign of Light

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.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

This Swiss band has a long diverse history. The consequence from this is that their discography is full of highlights and lowlights. Fortunately, "Reign of Light" is of the first type, because Samael found a balanced mix of heavyness and melody. They play with their genre and skillfully flow in a kind of pop appeal from time to time. Before starting with the details, I would like to underline that this album marks the best output that they made in the 21st century so far.

There seems to be an unvisible line between the first six songs and the following five pieces. In any case, the quality of the compositions declines noticeably. Fortunately, there is an exception, the sinister "Heliopolis". After a modest start, it continues heavy. Moreover, it is equipped with an oriental touch caused by well inserted female background vocals.

Let´s put an eye on the six tunes at the beginning. The album starts with "Moongate", a good entry, followed by "Inch' Allah". The verse builds up tension, the chorus does not entirely comply to this. Nevertheless, a strong tune. "High Above" presents a dragging rhythm and once again discreet female vocals to create an oriental mood. Now it is the turn of the title track. Keyboards dominate at first, but heavy guitar riffs come along soon. The verse culminates in a strong chorus. Furthermore, I have to mention the powerful part after the second chorus. Contrary to its predecessor, "On Earth" is the most melodious tune on this album. The leisurely rhythm matches with the harmonious refrain, while the lyrics are almost dreamlike. But the rough voice contrasts with the "commercial" elements mentioned before. "Telepath" choses another a direction. Aggression, harshness and hecticness are its essential characteristics.

I won´t waste to much words about the remaining four songs. You will neither identify candidates for Samael´s next "Best Of" nor you will feel the urge to skip a track. But all in all, you have eleven attempts and seven hits: indeed, a good quota and therefore it remains just a small deficiency that the songs are a bit equably. This is what happens when just one guy (Vorph) composes the music.

The production is excellent; clear and heavy at once. Samael have been intelligent enough not to focus on a cold industrial atmosphere. The voice dominates, but the instruments have a full sound, too. Get into the light and find out.

One of the first metal bands to which I’ve been exposed, Samael have led quite a special career. The band started out as a classic, necro mix of black and death metal during the late 80s and early 90s. At that stage they began evolving towards a slightly more industrial sound in the mid 90s, albeit one which was still heavily rooted in metal and gave off a huge space vibe, as exemplified by the high quality Passage album. They kept on going in that direction, adding industrial elements, shortening their stage names and making the music catchier each time which losing a bit of their metal past. Eternal was still quite good but then came this… Reign of Light.

This album is the point in their career where the metal elements reached an all-time low. This honestly sounds more at home at the Eurovision contest than on Metal-Archives. The guys’ songwriting skills are still prevalent and, much like Peter Tägtgren’s side project Pain, what might be a complete trainwreck had it been written by some nobody is turned into a catchy, almost decently done industrial album. For the most part. That’s because, like many similar efforts, the amount of filler and of songs which get hideously irritating is quite high.

Analysed individually, none of the album’s various elements contain what one usually associates with metal, let alone extreme metal. The vocals would be right at home on any number of industrial bands’ albums, although they’re still the evident result of the gradual evolution from mid-era Samael. Vorph performs a kind of semi-clean vocals in his usual recognizable voice, with a slight, greatly reduced rasp, reminiscent of the band’s glory days. The vocals aren’t really the problematic part; in fact they’re what make the highlights (the good songs’ choruses) actually enjoyable. The music is driven by a keyboard-guitar combination which, instead of featuring the latter instrument in prominence, reduces it to a few buried riffs here and a supporting role for the keyboards, which are by the most important part of the music. Melodies which pop stars wouldn’t shy away from putting into their albums are prevalent here and they’re sometimes used with good taste but more often than not become annoying and seem out of place. Additionally, the drumming is insanely repetitive and slow, with a sound which is extremely distant from what anyone expects from a metal album. This sounds more like a shitty club beat than like actual drumming, which is what the overall production seems to favor as well.

Looking back at that paragraph, a part-by-part analysis of this album makes it sound horrible. Fortunately the aforementioned songwriting skills these guys possess come in to save a certain portion of this album. When they succeed, they create insanely memorable songs which are catchy enough to be hits, preferably to an audience used to a good amount of industrial elements into their music (dance music kiddies will probably still dislike this), and the (good) songs actually have a high replayability value, which is what such an album should strive for. The opener, Moongate, is relatively good (the vocals are well-done) but both the structure and the keys are a bit off and annoying, respectively. Inch’Allah is, however, a masterpiece of industrial/electronic, mostly due to the perfectly arranged chorus where the vocals and keyboards create a soaring, epic atmosphere. The exact same thing can be said of the title track but perhaps even more so (better, catchier), with some good guitar work thrown in as well. The other primary highlight is Further, basically the only really good song on the latter half of the album and a more slow-paced, somehow relaxed song compared to the previous great ones.

The rest of Reign of Light basically goes from either decent but slightly unremarkable industrial songs (Telepath, Heliopolis), some of which were pitiful attempts at commercial success, to a large amount of filler and even a couple of really awful songs, namely As The Sun and the catchy but laughably cheesy On Earth, a single which, once you realize that half the world’s capitals are mentioned and that lines such as these exist, just make you wonder what the fuck happened to the guys who released albums like Blood Ritual :

Touching the sky with our hands
Longing to love to understand

Reign of Light is a very strange and inconsistent album. One the one side it contains great songwriting and a few stellar moments yet on the other it fails are being anything remarkable or important. Luckily Samael have moved a bit closer to metal since this album, although they’re still a bit too close to this whole post-modern industrial image/sound for my tastes. Anyone interested in the band should definitely check out every single album preceding this and might even want to just stop there, perhaps get the good songs from this album. Purchasing Reign of Light is only recommended to those wishing to complete their Samael collection or to people who desire an industrial album without balls.

With 2004's Reign Of Light, after almost 5 years since their last album, Samael, again, redefined their own style and created yet another musical dimension in their sound. As always, this is a band of evolutions. After an LP like Eternal which sounded dissapointing to many, they came with something closer to their Passage masterpiece. This album isn't really better than Passage, but the best I can say is that it's equal. As a matter a fact, it's difficult to compare Passage, Eternal and Reign Of Light, due to the fact that each of them is so different from the other. After all, it will be down to you to decide which of the three is the best. Take it for granted that the combination of styles sounds amazingly well!

What's for sure is that the musical genius, Xytras, is back with an unsurpassed melodicity combined with Vorphalack's harsh and violent vocals, which sound angrier than ever. What's so great about this is that you can actually *understand* a large part of the lyrics. I've been listening to Black Metal for some years now, but this is the first album where the sound IS black metal and quite a good part of the lyrics can be understood. The other will make sense when reading them. If you're an open minded rocker, you'll absolutely love this album.

This release is another step forward for Samael, the band that started with some run of the mill demos, three LPs largely preocupied with satanism and the occult and that after grew into one of the most innovative metal bands in the world. The lyrics on this album are largely about life and existence (from what I've been able to understand). Since Passage, this has been a band that grew up a lot. Vorph's (f.k.a. Vorphalack) lyrics were previously entangled in the satanic and occult but have now grown to a much higher level, proving just how much this band can bring: good music AND good lyrics, which is quite rare.

In conclusion, this album can be considered, close, equal or even better than the masterpiece Passage and re-affirms Samael's position in the Metal world as one of the most experimental and original bands on the planet!

Samael is quite a band, betraying their fan bases all over and over again. At least it indicates some creativity. Personally I feel this is Samael’s best piece of work so far, but then I’ve never really cared for kvlt black metal and the in-between albums that I feel are totally pointless (i.e. Passage). Now, the problem in describing Samael’s music is that it is so unique. Basically it consists of the steady drumming of industrial metal, played out by very competently programmed machines.

The guitars, electrically buzzing form the melody onto which the guitarist’s brother’s thick synths are attached. The bass is in the background, and the vocals are almost spoken with the certain roughness that I imagine Vorph caught back in the growling days. Oh well, the keyboards played by Xytraguptor/Xytras/Xy (next time he must change his name to X). They are really odd, and make Samael the special band they are.

They play out a virtual drapery of electronic chords that I find very compelling. It’s dark and it is heavy in a very skilled way, the way only masters of industrial music can succeed in, with the drum beat just pressing and the synthal sounds sweeping like sonic waves of different density. I hate using scientific metaphors, but it really feels that way. First the drums producing an undeniably heavy, dense force, shoving around the keyboard chords like light gas molecules. On top of that are the vocals, dark and somehow robotic – constantly mangling out from the speakers with its dark but inspiring message. Samael is a band that must be experienced to be understood, and the music is well worth the trouble one might have finding Reign of Light.