This is the first full-length of the great band Samael, and personally I consider it a brilliant BM work. We’re not talking about the classic “True-fucking-Norwegian-black-metal”, nevertheless this sounds great, excellent, from –almost- every point of view. Vorph is an evil genius, just like his brother who is the mind of the band – a band which will have a great success. Although Samael don’t come from Norway, or however from the north where lots of memorable BM bands emerged in early ’90, they deserve all the respect, from the beginning of their career until Solar Soul, truly the highlight of the new electronic era. It’s impressive. I tried to listen first to Solar Soul and then to Worship Him; from pure light and optimism to a deep and dark black Metal opus.
A black Metal without fast and possessed drumming and with slow tempos, almost like doom Metal, vampiric vocals, some keyboards here and there, disquieting guitars and that’s it. But it is extremely appreciable. The music in this album is winding, there are a lot of spells and satanic invocations –OBVIOUSLY- but instead of screaming out “SATAN SATAN OH SATAN” like the other 10000 black Metal bands in the world, Samael prefer to write cultured and well-read lyrics, and that is a typical feature of the Swiss band I dearly love.
“Sleep of Death” opens this masterpiece –yeah, I said masterpiece- and shows how Samael can be creepy and devilish: actually, the first thing you can notice are the vocals; a lot of people don’t appreciate Vorph in this release, maybe because he’s too weak and dull, but I really don’t bother. He sings wonderfully. And so on, with the title track which is the second highlight and one of the slowest tracks in the album. The evil invocations (Belf, son of Belf, give me the power to kill at distance…) in the mid-paced “Knowledge of the Ancient Kingdom” are astonishing, the convulsive riffs in “Morbid Metal” seem to come from the depths of hell, the instrumental "Rite of Cthulhu", "Last Benediction" and "The Dark" are perfect, the slow and frightful "Into the Pentagram" shines for its perfidy -always with Vorph's screams that maintain the pathos- and the brief but very intense "Messengers of the Light" isn't less interesting; "The Black Face" is the fastest track and the umpteenth highlight. Well, I have to say that the whole album is a unique highlight with few flaws, like its repetitiveness, and they don't deserve to be considered so much.
There’s the remastered version too, with a Venom cover and eight live-performed songs; I assure you that Samael are not SO bad here, but I know they could be better.
If you are a blackster and you are looking for something different from the canonical black, get this. And if you love it -I hope-, then get the other two Samael's black Metal albums, they won’t disappoint you.
Sample:
youtube.com/watch?v=khWREu3e7oM&list=RDkhWREu3e7oM&start_radio=1&t=9s
