Samsas Traum
Heiliges Herz - Das Schwert Deiner Sonne

Placing this Teutonic band within a single genre is truly a daunting task: originally proponents of "simple" symphonic Black Metal, Samsas Traum evolve and modify their sound throughout their career, reaching with this "Heiliges Herz - Das Schwert Deiner Sonne" (2007) indefinable shores of experimentation. Alienating keyboards, catchy choruses, guitar riffs ranging from heavy to black with hints of melodic death solos, vaguely spatial atmospheres, heavily filtered screams, and a generous dose of clean vocals are just a few of the characteristics of the work, perennially tied to their more extreme beginnings yet constantly projected towards avant-garde by an evident innovative taste.

Representative in this sense are the first tracks "Auf Den Spiralnebeln," with its impressive futuristic and cybernetic flavor, furiously electronic yet deeply inspired by the black school concerning the guitars, and "Durch Springende Lippen," pure heavy sung in growl with immediate, energetic impact, powerful and saturated with ferocious choruses. Similar to the latter follows "Schlaf In Den Flammen": very peculiar and disorienting keyboard notes accompany theatrical vocals and epically assertive choruses. The first gem of the album is the sixth track, "Liebeslied," a sort of black metal ballad in clean voice, sweetly soft in the intro and acoustic interludes, furiously majestic and permeated with a soft and almost romantic atmosphere: the delightful orchestral openings that characterize it are to be savored. Almost paradoxically, the next track, "Der Tag Stummer Rache," proves to be the most violent and true to the group's origins yet simultaneously the least successful, devoid of any electro-symphonic sophistication and pathos, overall plain.

The sole unfortunate episode of the work is excellently compensated by the wonderful "Hirte Der Meere," an exceptional compendium of aggressiveness and keyboard creativity: light and frantically elegant strings create a brilliantly chaotic atmosphere within which Kastche's sharp vocals decisively emerge. Interesting and particularly evocative is the ninth track "Im Auge Des Sturms," dark and apocalyptic, introduced by an ominous and sinister piano, rhythmically very tight, a grim prelude to the masterpiece of the work named "Heiliges Herz," "The Sacred Heart."

The same orchestral openings from "Liebeslied" form in this piece a deafening and exquisitely refined spiral of strings, a delicate explosion of sinuously gothic female voices and symphonic arabesques aimed at delineating atmospheres between the sacred and cosmic, while steady interweavings of melodic riffs and screamed choruses energetically follow one another throughout the entire track duration.

Finally closing the album is "Das Schwert Deiner Sonne," by far inferior to the previous but commendable in the final accelerations, epic and almost thrash. Absolutely original and at the same time accessible, highly enjoyable on the first listen, it represents an interesting alternative to the now overused clichés of symphonic black: brilliant.