Samael - Worship Him

Production: This has the heavy atmosphere of a garage without being muddied; preservation of guitar tone is reasonable, and vocals have enough distinction not to interrupt guitar. There is bass in this recording although no particular peaks.

Review: Direct and confrontational power-chord black metal that preserves an affinity for older metal styles in its incorporation of the new. Riffs involve the forefathers of ambient strumming in their insistent rhythm and simple indirection, but have the epic structure of a black metal band with the ability that technical speed metal bands had for constructing complex and lengthy riffs in albums that also featured very simple rifflets and bridges in addition to some massively minimized virus. Vocals are the rasping scream that black metal bands overutilize today.

Sometimes painful simplicity, however engaging, can deprive a song of merit but here the songs hold together well with their simple elements featured for their connective strengths and not for their easy forgery of a riff. Distinctive cadences break apart subphrases into downstrummed emphatic progressions of a deconstructive idea. In the strumming and falling melodies there is some of the original angst of punk rock, but in the demonstrative percussion and sleazy groove there is an ancestry of hard rock and old style heavy metal.

Tracklist:

1. Sleep of Death (3:44)
2. Worship Him (6:31)
3. Knowledge of the Ancient Kingdom (5:05)
4. Morbid Metal (4:56)
5. Rite of Cthulhu (2:02)
6. The Black Face (3:31)
7. Into the Pentagram (6:47)
8. Messengers of the Light (2:43)
9. Last Benediction (1:23)
10. The Dark (4:29)

Length: 41:13

Samael - Worship Him: Black Metal 1991 Samael

Copyright © 1991 Osmose

The evil this release conjures comes from the insistent rhythm that holds the songs together by knowing when to die and when to keep consistently, both avoiding the repetition conundrum and allowing these simple riffs to link together into a structure stronger than the parts of each song. A classic of black metal.