Hydra

Melodic death metal is something that I have always had an interest in ever since I started getting into more extreme forms of metal. Bands such as Insomnium, Wintersun, Amon Amarth, and later Hypocrisy really helped me get into metal, since they are able to convey great melodies into their songs while maintaining the heavy aspect of death metal. Satariel is another melodeath band that has attracted my attention, and being the fan of melodic death metal I am, I decided to look into their latest full length, ‘Hydra’.

The one thing that can be said about ‘Hydra’ is that it is pretty simple for most of the album. There are no amazingly complex riffs or ridiculous intricacies to many of the songs. Though the musicianship can be simple at times, there are things that draw the interest of the listener to the songs. The addition of acoustic guitars and synths help provide atmosphere and melody to the music, which is a key part to Satariel’s work. Vengeance is Hers is a song that has acoustic guitars present, and many song off of the album can be chosen to see an example of the synths. What can be considered nice to ‘Hydra’ is that when the synths are present in songs, they do not become overbearing to the listener. Some bands that add keyboards and synths to their music can focus too much on the synths or keyboards and this can ruin the song. They are a nice addition to the music off of ‘Hydra’.

The vocals on the album consist of harsh vocals and clean vocals. Harsh vocals in the album range from higher vocals, to deeper, guttural vocals. The higher vocals can be seen on the song Nihil Juggernaut, and they become an interesting aspect of the song when it is combined with the music provided by the other members of the band. The lower gutturals can be seen on the song For Galaxies to Clash. It seems that a second vocalist comes in for these parts to support the lead singer, Pär Johansson. This makes the vocals much more forceful, and it helps songs become heavier. The clean vocals are your typical clean vocals; there is nothing extremely special about them. Though there is nothing special to these clean vocals, they are an extremely important aspect of the album and they fit very well with the music. If these vocals were absent from the album, ‘Hydra’ would be a lot less enjoyable. Throughout the album, the clean vocals are usually sung on their own with no supporting vocals, but sometimes they are combined with the harsh vocals that create quite a unique sound. The song Claw the Clouds uses this technique quite well, and it helps make this song one of the stronger songs on the album.

The only complaint that I have for the album is that after a few listens it becomes quite repetitive. Many of the songs are structured in very similar ways. The vocals are all harsh except the chorus, which is where the clean vocals are employed. This causes the album to become a bit boring at times after several listens. Each song separately can become repetitive as well. For example, choruses are often repeated many times throughout songs.

Grievances aside, this is a solid album that should interest any fan of melodic death metal, or anyone who is looking for an album that is not extremely heavy. ‘Hydra’ is good for quite a few listens before the repetitive nature of its songs are noticed by the listener. If you have some extra cash or you are looking for some good melodeath, I would strongly recommend you give Satariel a try.

Satariel’s melodic death metal does for this album gain an even more modern sound. They can be described as a heavier version of later In Flames, combined with a less synthesized version of later Dark Tranquillity plus a sprinkle of Candlemass. This time, Pär Johansson handles all singing himself, thus putting more emphasis on his clean voice (on Phobos he had the help of Candlemass’s Messiah Marcolin), while we are of course still provided with both low death grunts and black-ish screaming.

The album starts out right away with a catchy rhythm in “The Freedom Fall” that should instantly get the listener’s head banging. What strikes one after listening a while is that there is often something going on other than the main riffing, drumming and singing. Clean/acoustic guitars, choirs, discrete synths, and guitar leads can be heard in the background, which gives the album a rich sound. This is fortunate, because the riffs are more of plain rhythm guitar than usually in death metal, so it would have risked being boring otherwise. There are some killer riffs still, but not as many as before.

The lyrics are quite philosophical this time, and give much opportunity for interpretation. Issues seem to include reflections about free will (“The Freedom Fall”), man making himself God (“For Galaxies to Clash”, “Claw the Clouds”), but also man’s relation to God (“Scatter-ing the Timeweb”, “Be You Angel, Be You Beast”). “Vengeance Is Hers” is a little different, being a heavier, hateful song, apparently directed at rapists. In short, the lyrics are excellent, original and interesting.

A bad thing about the lyrics is that they seem too short for the songs. In “300 Years Old” for example, the chorus is repeated four times. That is the same four lyrics lines repeated eight times in four and a half minutes time. The choruses are repeated many times in other songs as well, which is a bit repetitive.

This is a much softer album than Satariel’s previous work, which is reflected in the plentiful clean vocals and more of a “modern metal” style of guitar work. The production is very polished, and the lack of rough edges in that area might annoy some people. But even though softer, Satariel retain their interesting lyrics, solid songs, and great vocals, which is enough for a high grade in my book. I hope, however, they return to the heavier sound we could enjoy on the previous album and not go too “soft” in the future (we see in horror the path In Flames went post-2000).

To summarize, this album does not surpass Phobos and Deimos, but it does draw equal with other giants within modern melodic death metal. The lyrics might concern great riddles, but an even greater riddle is why this band is not on everyone’s lips when talking modern death.

I felt that title was appropriate because if there's one term you can use to describe this album, it's modern. The production is dense and heavy and atmosphereic. To elaborate on it's sound, a good comparison would be Soilwork's 'Natural Born Chaos' album, except this is heavier and far more dense. This album, like NBC, has heavy verses and clean melodic choruses, but unlike NBC, the verses aren't dumbed down. Satariel seems to have given emphasis on making the different idea on the album come together in sync with eachother as opoosed to having rough and strange sections of each.
If what I'm describing sounds vague, just look at the production team. Daniel Bergstand and Örjan Örnkloo, the team responsible for such albums as 'Reroute to Remain', 'Figure Number Five' and 'Expanded Senses', so just think of that thick modern sound and you'll have the right idea about this.

The thing I adore about this genre of music, is the song writing. Some call it 'pop' some call it 'nu' I call it brilliant. Heavy, catchy and melodic with a flying chorus, oh my do I love it. This album totally fits that bill. The songs here are all heavy and melodic with GREAT choruses. They really have that flight that makes this genre special to me. The choruses are all in clean vocals, which sound like the vocals heard on 'Sybreed's debut album 'Slave Design', They also sound like a more upbeat, faster Warrel Dane, which is great because I really dislike his slow and droning vocal approach. The harsh vocals on this album take a page or two from Black Metal, shreiking and hateful.

The production..excellent. It's no coincidence why some of my favorite albums of all time were produced by Bergstrand and Örnkloo. Together they create dense heavy albums filled with this flying atmosphere and this album is no different. The drum sound is PERFECT, the double kick is insanely heavy and just relentlessly attacks in waves, and most of the time sets up the rhythm for the entire album, case in point, track '2', it's lead by a crushing double kick rhythm. The snare and cymbals are lower in volume, but still right in the front, dominating. Everything about the production here is 100% professional and well heard.

This album gets a 98 from me, the reason it doesn't get 100, is there is one song that isn't all that, it's still good, but not as great as the rest. The song I'm mentioning is track 9 'Nihil Juggernaut' which as the title suggests is the albums brutal song, but in regards to the other song, it feels forced and out of place. On another album though, it'd really be a highlight.

So go get this. It's catchy, melodic, professional and very heavy, but don't get discouraged by my description of it, it's far less poppy and upbeat than the usual modern Gothenburg release, this is much darker, but still catchy. Check it out please.

Recomended Listening: 'Be You Angel, Be You Beast', 'Claw the Clouds', 'For Galaxies to Clash' 'No God Loves'.

On a closing note, if I was in a band and signed to a well established label, I'd definetly make an attempt to have Bergstand and Örnkloo produce an album.