Samael – Reign of Light
Nuclear Blast Records – February 8th, 2005
By Jason Jordan
On the rollercoaster that is
Samael’s career,
Ceremony of Opposites was perhaps the top of the huge hill, whereas outings like
Passage and
Eternal were midway down.
Reign of Light, which sees release in the United States today, is definitely at the bottom of the hill where the excitement has dissipated, and you’re actively looking forward to the next thrill in the form of a twist or turn. Aside from alliteration,
Samael have crafted an album that is overwhelmingly boring.
Fact is: the Swiss group isn’t going to win any fans with “Moongate.” It’s a fairly straightforward opener, and there are cool, electronic doodads shooting off now and again; but – overall – it fails to ensnare me. “Inch’ Allah” is slightly better, though certain sections of the aforementioned track sound
extremely similar to
The Kovenant. “Reign of Light” is atrocious, and conjures images of
Rammstein. Come to think of it, the latter seemingly reverberate throughout new
Samael. “On Earth,” “Telepath,” and “Oriental Dawn” are basically uninteresting. “As the Sun” witnesses Vorph (guitar, vocals) do some terribly-rendered, a cappella vox. Despite being an optimistic album lyric-wise, it seems as if this has subsequently weakened
Reign of Light. I’m not exactly sure if the band lost focus and/or inspiration, but the predictable spacey synthesizers, less-than-a-full-on-growl vocalizations, and lack of differentiation in song structure makes the quartet’s latest full-length a chore rather than a vice.
If you’re at all familiar with the band, you’ll know the records to collect and the records to pass over. To put it bluntly,
Reign of Light doesn’t deserve even a sneer. Are
Samael – as we know them – dead?
5.5/10
Isolde’s Review of Samael – Reign of Light
Official Samael website
Official Nuclear Blast website
