Samael
Ceremony Of Opposites

THE REVIEW

With this album, Samael let the world know they existed, and with talents that combined great class with fierce and lethal music, they established themselves as a living and pulsating reality for a Swiss Black Metal scene that probably never existed, but has always produced excellent works from excellent and seminal bands, Celtic Frost and Coroner above all.

Alongside these, Samael inserted themselves and were destined to carve out a significant niche in the extreme underground, influential even for bands that came later and tried to draw inspiration from their clichés. It certainly wasn't an easy task, given that they, besides having an extraordinary boldness, knew (and know how to combine) the lethal and grandiose brutality of European Black Metal with a pronounced taste for the symphonic and choral, placing them in an awkward and somewhat ambiguous position: the sounds of this album, in fact, never exceed in furious speed and murderous screams, a trademark of the genre, but rather insist on a certain underlying serpentine malevolence, on a misanthropic and blasphemous malice that is felt distinctly in every groove and every note, without ever going overboard, and without getting lost in the "tout-court" experimentation that marked their future works (Passage above all).

And so, one can certainly speak of Black metal for "Ceremony of Opposites," a ceremonial album with a thousand facets, that fishes where the abyss is always murkier, succeeding admirably in its goal of matching the devastating and nihilistic "mood" of Black with flashes of composite and highly technical Industrial.

The first "Black Trip" and the fourth "Till We Meet Again" are clear examples of this, the latter a true manifesto for the entire CD, with its sampled effects and its eclectic and cadenced "step" that, amidst bells, tuning forks, and almost tribal drumming, can evoke certain sick and sulfurous atmospheres typical of the novels by H.P. Lovecraft, very fascinating and introspective.
Moreover, to compose such a work requires a massive dose of intelligence, something the Samael don't lack, positioning themselves as a "cultured" band that skillfully explores every negative and unhealthy aspect surrounding mankind. Noteworthy is certainly "Mask of Red Death", inspired by the famous story by E.A. Poe, highlighting aspects that might never be imagined.

In short, this is a beautiful album, a classic for a group that, while being part of a certain scene, even though it harbors all its seeds at the songwriting level ("Baphomet's Throne", "Flagellation", "Ceremony of Opposites"), has dared much in the future (speaking of the present day, naturally), but here is absolutely grappling with a well-made work, studied in minute detail and excellently arranged and executed (and this is also a note that has always distinguished Samael), with all beautiful tracks, even if at a first listen they might seem "cold" and disconcerting; perhaps, however, this is precisely the beauty: to want to seem alienating and icy, but managing to emanate nevertheless an aura of cosmicity and "black humor" as thick as pitch permeating every corner of a shapeless and grotesque world unknown to most.

Recommended for those who don't know them, and also for some Blacksters in search of something "different" from the "True Norwegian."