Samael - Worship Him (1991)

It seems whenever people go about explaining black metal's roots and who influenced what and where it came from the legendary Swiss band known as Samael is often overlooked.

Recorded in March of 1990, 'Worship Him' served as Samael's debut full-length album when it was released in April of '91 and although the band isn't from Scandinavia, they never wore corpsepaint, they hardly played their music that fast and even as a number of the songs are re-recordings from the demos released between '87-'89 this early entry in the black metal genre is hard to deny.

Forgoing the belligerent blasting speeds that bands like Bathory and Sarcófago were performing just a few years earlier, Samael's music here is played at gloomy highly atmospheric doom-ish paces with occasional slightly speedier flashes to early Hellhammer/Celtic Frost plus some occasional synth enrichment and its all wrapped up with a very underground raw production job. Vorphalack's voice is absolutely diabolical and chilling to the bone while his guitar work is full of ominous riffs bathed in heavy reverb and crippling malice. Masmiseim's bass work is there, but barely, while Xytras drum work is fairly standard, not to showy and certainly not that fast either, but it works with this sort of music.

Perhaps why folks forget this album and what holds it back from being a true classic of the genre is the fact that there really isn't any single song that totally grabs you and screams perfection, though personally I do enjoy, 'Into the Pentagram' since its the most doomtrodden song on the album, as well the short but effective ambient/neo classical piece, 'Last Benediction' is superb and the fastest and dare I say catchiest song, 'The Dark' is a perfect closer for this album, even if it is an instrumental. Still, what makes the album an interesting listen is it's highly atmospheric characteristics and the bleak feeling it gives off.

I guess a lot of people know that Samael would continue to expand their sound and as far as their black metal days are concerned most prefer, 'Blood Ritual' from '92 or 'Ceremony of Opposites' from '94. By '96 the band would completely abandon black metal on, 'Passage' in favor of some sort of alternative electronic metal, which just really never did that much for me, though I hear the newer stuff is a slight turn back to the early years.

In the end, 'Worship Him' can be enjoyable after a number of spins, but its really one of those releases for folks that long to see the roots of certain genres and although they may be often forgotten and their influence not credited, Samael's early work will always have a special attraction for me.