Samael

Reign of Light (Nuclear Blast)
by Martin Popoff

Always with the disco metal, grumblers say. And yes, this elusive, illusory collective (Kovenant, Satyricon, Sentenced, Amorphis, Nile, Lake of Tears) do play a sort of clubby, mechanistic, Rammstein-angular, er, disco metal, but they’re weirdly smart and evil about it. Or maybe that’s me just remembering what a darkened scourge metal blight this Swiss collective once were. But no, I was hooked in for embarrassingly repeated plays of Passage (’96) and Eternal (’99) as well, and those were the transitional records, Xy and Vorph already uttering veiled threats at low registers over new-fangled techno beats. And it sounded great. Reign of Light is more of the same, and I’m still somewhat seduced by the idea of these (may as well be) ITALIANS up to such chain-jangling blasphemy.
(www.nuclearblastusa.com)