SAMAEL – To Release New Album In 2017

“Samael is celebrating 30th anniversary next year and is releasing a new album. On April 22, the band will headline the return of the mighty MetalMania Festival in Katowice, Poland. The band will perform a special set featuring material from the first four albums, and present new songs from the upcoming album. Get ready for a very special show! Tickets are available now.”

Samael’s previous album, Lux Mundi, was released in April 2011 through Nuclear Blast. Go to this location for updates.

S A M A E L existed long before brothers Vorphalack and Xytraguptor began turning gears in a bunker on the 14th of July 1988 – but that was the day it awoke. While practicing daily during that summer, the duet had one thing in mind: conquer the world.

The first small step toward that goal was the recording of their self-financed EP Medieval Prophecy in October ’88. The following year they wrote more songs and played shows in Germany, France, Switzerland and Poland, before taking the decisive step to record an album. On their way to rehearsal on the 12th of December 1989, the brothers stopped by bassist Masmiseîm’s place to talk him into joining S A M A E L . He accepted on the spot but remained with his former band Alastis for a few months.



The trio booked a studio for March 1990, and by April 1991, debut album Worship Him became the first release on newly-formed French label Osmose Productions. With this incisive step, S A M A E L began its invasion of the worldwide underground. A crucial series of concerts culminated with two monumental shows in Moscow. The following year the band signed a multi-album deal with fast growing label Century Media. By autumn 1992, Xytraguptor, Masmiseîm and Vorphalack were in studio, working for the first time with producer Waldemar Sorychta. From that recording session emerged Blood Ritual, 11 tracks of occult dark metal. Following its release, the band set out on its first European tour with label mates Unleashed and Tiamat. Later shows included the band’s first appearance at German festivals Wacken Open Air and Popkomm.

His head boiling with new ideas, Xytras took over composing Samael’s music while Vorphalack focused on lyrics. As the new songs were taking shape, it became clear that keyboards were needed for the next album, leading the band to invite local goth Rodolph H. to come ride a few miles with them. Recorded and mixed in 10 days at Woodhouse studios in Hagen, Germany, Ceremony of Opposites crowned S A M A E L as rulers of the underground. The album took the band on three European tours and their first North American tour (where they opened for Cannibal Corpse). To keep the band on the road, S A M A E L recorded Rebellion in February 1995, an EP that included an Alice Cooper cover (“I Love the Dead”) and an instrumental track constructed entirely with programmed drums, the latter presaging the future of the band’s evolution.

For fourth album Passage, Waldemar Sorychta went to Switzerland for pre-production work and was surprised with all the changes that occurred in the band since the Ceremony album. Rodolph was no longer part of the team, Xy moved from the drums to the keyboards and programmed all drum parts on a machine. The band had also hired a second guitar player named Kaos. A few months later, in Woodhouse studio again but with more time to spend, the band recorded 15 new songs and new versions of two songs from Ceremony of Opposites. The bulk of the tracks were used on Passage, while six of them were saved for an EP – Exodus – to be released later on. The overwhelming reaction of journalists invited to the studio to listen to some of the new songs was a positive sign; Passage was no ordinary album. The band’s credibility and popularity skyrocketed after the album’s release. A first headlining tour all over Europe was followed by many festival appearances including Dynamo Open Air, Wacken Open Air and With Full Force.

After the phenomenal success of Passage, in order to stay relevant to their artistic ideals, the band had to further develop their views and enlarge the spectrum of their music. Their already unique sound would be enriched with rock elements and with experimentations flirting with jazz and electronica. Eternal was the result, a self-produced album recorded in the nearby Mountain Studio; the album was engineered and mixed by David Richards, more known for his work with Queen and David Bowie than for his association to metal. Xy and Vorph would go to London to master the album with Toni Cousin (veteran of various Peter Gabriel and Genesis projects), another name alien to S A M A E L’s usual surroundings. Following the release of Eternal in August 1999, the band embarked on their first headlining tour of North America. The next year saw the band playing selected summer festivals including Artefacts Festival in Strasburg (France) where they shared the stage with Iron Maiden.

On November 19th 2010, Antigod was unleashed. Originally intended as a single, it eventually took the shape of an EP due to the amount of tracks; one them being the re-recording of “Into the Pentagram,” which first appeared on 1988’s Medieval Prophecy EP. The appearance of this refurbished old song effectively built a bridge over the band’s two decades of musical evolution, and their return album, Lux Mundi – released in Europe through Nuclear Blast in April 2011 and in North America through Season of Mist in July –shines brightly above it.

Source: BW&BK

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