Hot or not? The truth lies in the middle!

"Passage" and "Ceremony of Opposites" are my favorite Samael albums, so I welcome the move away from the shallow electro-metal sounds of the last albums. The Swiss have really retold the stick out of the bag, but hats off! The hardness is "Above" with faster Rotting Christ or Moonspell stuff on one level, it can and should go on it.

BUT: Compared to "Passage" remains after listening to the new album simply return nothing. Only two songs, the opener "Under One Flag" and the bouncer "On The Top Of It All" have something like recognition or catchy quality. The rest is just a uniformly durchgebolztes musical storm, saying briefly, "Damn!", But because of lightning strikes does not seem at the end but again only the sun. What "Above", despite the re-emergence of brutality also lacking, is the darkness and evilness of the early works. At that time, Samael have bitten, now they only bark loudly.

Perhaps the disk could be even with the one or other rotation hear beautiful and maybe two or three late bloomer would discover among the songs, when - we come to the biggest shortcoming - would not be so underground production. The bludgeoning drums and distorted vocals are good to hear, the strings fraction is however completely under the loud sound muddy and can therefore put zero accents. Keyboard sounds, there is probably also, but they are also hard to hear and contribute to the atmosphere at nothing.

Conclusion: Samael may like to continue with the new hardness. If the next album will be produced somewhat more differentiated and to loosen up sometimes one or two leisurely tracks are contributed, it could be really great. "Above" would be in the band's history a necessary and important clearance for future exploits. By itself alone, the album is unfortunately only average.