By: Anders

Posted: Sep 4, 2005

I was very impressed by this Swedish band's last album "Phobos And Deimos", a great piece of melodic death metal fused with doom metal. The album was released back in 2002 and there had been somewhat quiet from the band, so I was very surprised when I saw this album in my mail.

The music has gotten even darker and more doomy since the last album. The label describe the music as a mix between Candlemass and early In Flames, and for once I would like to concur. The enchanting melodic guitar leads and melodies and the downtuned straight forwardness from the old In Flames. And the epic and dark atmospheres from Candlemass. There is some good guitar work on the album. Though the highlight is the vocals from Pär Johansson, he varies between the "normal" Swedish death metal scream, a deeper growl with proportions of the doomsday and a clean great vocal, very close, once in a while, to his idol Messiah Marcolin. Sometimes I actually wish he would do the clean vocal all the way through, even though the growls brings some nice variation.

The album is a grower, it seems quite at first, but grows as the time passes by. I have used some time to get into it, but am starting to like it a lot. The music isn't that special, its good, but pretty much what one can expect from the band. The compositions are good and very atmospheric and at times moving as well. The vocals range from good to outstanding, and the atmospheres presented on "Hydra" are magnificent. Dark, melancholic, doomy paintings of despair and solitude, yet mysterious. This should speak to fans of doomy metal, with melodic elements and I even think fans of melodic death metal will enjoy this album a lot too. It's an interesting path Satariel is on and it'll be great to follow them in the future.

Rating: 7½/10

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