Samael – Above And Beyond The Roots

One of the biggest metal exports hailing from Switzerland is Samael, a band that arrived on the scene more than 20 years ago as a force in the Black Metal genre. Samael released 3 classic albums before changing form through the use of electronics, programmed drums and other unconventional elements. After 4 albums that tread closer to Industrial and Goth metal, the band's return-to-roots project, "Above", was eventually released as their new album – an aggressive, hard-to-swallow affair that sees the band returning to the Black Metal music they started with. To better understand this surprising move from Samael, we spoke with vocalist Vorph.

Hey Vorph! Samael started as a black metal band, then evolved into something quite unique and now got back to its old roots. What made you take this side-step into the past?

Well, we first started working on this material as a project. It was Xy who came with this "virtual band" and a couple of songs and I just tried to put my vocal lines and some lyrics on it. We had 3 songs in the beginning and then we just evolved from song to song, so eventually we had enough material for an album. At that time we were still thinking to do a project, we wanted to call this project "Above". We made the album during the summer, then we went to America and when we got back from there, we arranged the music for the mixing and mastering. Then we thought there are some stuff that would be a nice addition to Samael, material that we can do live, so we decided not to do it as a project, but call it a Samael album, and here we go…

Like you mentioned, "Above" was originally a "virtual band", what did it mean?

We had the songs, we mixed them, and we thought instead of just have it as Xy thing, we would create an actual band around it, as far as creating Avatars with computer animation. We thought it would be better like this, to have the image with the music, but the main thing was the music itself, so eventually we decided to throw the whole thing in the trash and use it as Samael album. It was a difficult decision to make but I'm happy with it because there was a lot of work involved to create this thing, and on the other side I didn't know if we will have the opportunity to play it live, so at least now I know this material will be played live very soon.

Once you decided to release "Above" as a Samael album, why did you decide to stick with the name? What does it mean in context with the album itself?

There was no deep thinking behind it really, I always like people to make their minds about what they want it to mean. For us, I think from the first 3 songs… I had this feeling the music is little bit of something taking off… Like, we used a sound for the intro of the album, a noise of something taking off… I had the feeling this music had this power, but with something more.

What can you tell us about the cover artwork? Was this part of your concept or the designer's choice?

It's different… I'm very pleased the way it turned out. It is the same guy who did the cover for "Solar Soul", I gave him some instructions for the cover but he didn't follow it much actually, the only thing he kept was the double pentagram, which is in the middle. I know it's a surprise, it isn't what I expected, but I liked it straight. It's kind of reflecting the title, and some of the songs like "Illumination" and even "Earth Country"… you got a lot of things that are embedded into the image. I think it looks very nice, I'm very pleased with it.

Was it different for you to write lyrics for the new album?

A little bit… usually for Samael I write little things before I have the music, and then I try to develop from what I wrote, and how it can work with the music. With "Above" I didn't have anything, I just got the music and I had to write whatever came into my mind. So yeah, it was different, but I can say it's pretty much the same subject and theme we had from "Eternal" to the last 2 albums… just more frontal, less imaginary and less metaphoric. Because the music is more straight-up, I thought the lyrics should be straight as well. Eventually, it was kind of different way to say the same thing.

While you guys go back to your roots, in what is "Above" different than your first 3 albums in the genre?

Experience probably, I think we have our identity a lot more on this album. On the 3 first ones, we were still searching things but on "Above" you can hear our influence perfect. At first when it was a project, we didn't work that much on the songs, we just played whatever came, and go for it, pretty much live, pretty much instinctive. I think the sound is better today, but the influence is definitely rooted in the past. We just wanted to play for fun and we actually took a risk, because many told us that they don't think we have it anymore…

With "Above" you stripped almost completely your electronic and modern influences, other than some small progressive touches here and there. What inspired that move?

There are almost no experimentations on "Above", we pretty much just wanted to do this type of album. We did a project a few years ago called "Era One", that was released under the Samael catalogue, because it was part of the same contract… Somehow I like to see these 2 records as they meant to be projects, but then actually became Samael albums, and they are perfect opposites, like Ying & Yang. "Era One" was pretty much us trying to play only with our "science" influences, we were not on unknown ground, we were just experimenting with electronics, industrial, techno and classical mixed together with no guitars – it was totally different.

With "Above" there's no experimentations, there's just metal, with plenty of guitar and little bit of keyboard but not much, and yeah, like you mentioned, there is no electronic sound… It was meant to be different, it was meant to be fresh air, just having fun and letting go a little bit. I kind of like that. I think with the 3 last albums maybe we took ourselves a little too seriously. It was refreshing to do something less thought through – a bit more with the guts and not much with the brain.

On the last albums you used programmed drumming, but the ones here sound very natural. Did Xy returned to full-on metal drumming on this album?

I think this is still programming. Since "Passage" we've been working with drum machine, and in time we learned how to work it out. That's a funny thing, we used a studio here with some friends, and a lot of drummers now days they record the drums and then use computer and try to make it perfect. Xy kind of work the other way around, he work the programming, having this thing perfect, and then he just little bit play with it, not to the point of mid-take, but enough. So we spent some time doing that, and I think it worked, because you're not the first mentioning it that there could be a real drummer on this one. I think he did a good job.

The same can be asked about your vocals, they are much harsher and aggressive this time. Was it hard getting back to being so heavily aggressive after a long time of singing in different styles?

It came naturally, and that's the thing… we usually use a lot of vocal tracks, at least for the last 2-3 albums. On "Solar Soul" there were a lot of tracks where the vocals are pretty much aggressive – maybe more up-front, not too much aggressive, but it still there. And I think when we play live the whole music is more aggressive then when we record. On "Above" there were a lot of faster singing to do, but I just doubled it with the same kind of voice, and that's it. On the song "Together" from "Eternal" for example I had like 10 vocal tracks, and I spent a lot of time doing it. On "Above" it was like 2 to 6 maximum, we kept to that and that was it.

You had the chance to visit Israel a couple of years ago [end 2005], what do you remember of your time here and from your show?

Great show, we had a great time. That was my very first visit to Israel, and I loved Tel-Aviv. We even had a day after the show where we went to Jerusalem. It was kind of interesting to see a city with so much history.

Did your visit in the Middle East had any influence on some of the lyrics you made for the album "Solar Soul" or do you tend to keep up to date with what's going on around here?

I don't think it had any influence. I never really write political things, maybe I had little bit on the song "Slavocracy"… but it was more of larger scale. So no, I don't think it had any influence on anything I did so far.

I want to talk about the sound on the new album. Why did you choose to go for such an aggressive and old school one instead of doing a more modern approach to your black metal style?

We recorded the whole thing very fast, the recording was done in 3 weeks and the mixing in 4 days… Makro our guitar player has another band called Sludge, and they went with… amm… what's his name, I forgot … the guy we mixed the album with in Sweden.

You mean Fredrik Nordstöm…

Nordstöm! exactly… I just had a black out… [Laughs]… He was the best guy to do this with, he worked very fast, and it was great to work with him. With "Solar Soul" we spent a lot of time on every song, there was never more than one song a day, and with "Above", he just did the settings (it took him little bit time) and then its more like a concert – almost every song is mixed the same way. It's more relaxing, because he just goes through it and the songs are less personalized. I think the album is more of something whole when it's not like song to song. By the time you realize you listen to it, it's already finished.

Do you think the album can appeal to fans that tend to like only your last 3 albums or would they find it difficult?

That's a good question, I don't know. I know it would be difficult with this one, that's for sure, maybe a little bit surprising – probably for those who discovered us very lately… but at least it's good to show them where we come from, since all our personal influences are in this one. So maybe that's giving them a tough history [Laughs]…

Besides touring, what are Samael plans for the next year? Any other projects you want to undertake?

I don't know yet. We will do some touring and then some festivals and we'll see… it will depend if there's going to be a tour this fall. If nothing will come, I guess we'll start working on new material and we'll see how things go, and when we'll be ready for another recording. Its not going to be very soon, but if we start to work this fall, maybe sometime next year.

Do you have any final comment to your Israeli fans regarding the new album or anything else?

We talked about "Above" and I hope you're going to get what it is. You can also check some of the songs on our MySpace page, to kind of get the idea. We also hope to have another chance to come back to Israel sometime soon.