Sael - Ocean cover artwork

Rating: 9.0

Country: France

Release Date: 2007

Track list:
1. Ocean 10:59
2. Ivresse de Lune 06:22
3. Instrumental 05:11
4. Un Cri dans l'Eternité 08:15

Total playing time 30:47

Band Website: Sael

Sael - Ocean

Raphael “Iconoclast”: Guitars
Vincent Roubiere: Drums
Thomas Chassaigne: Bass
Serge Usson: Vocals
Matthieu Gervreau: Fx & Progs
Lyshd Mordrak: Guitars

France seems to be a hotbed for truly talented and original black metal these days and into this tradition of excellence step these newcomers; Sael. And they can be slotted right at the top with the other elite bands from France with their hard-hitting, varied and melodic black metal. This also has a slightly progressive edge, reminding me somewhat of the German Nagelfar in their prime, as well as Enslaved, Helheim and their countrymates Belenos.

The progressive elements which I made mention of primarily manifest in the structuring of the songs as well as the riffs which are more intricate than is typical. I would qualify this as quite cerebral metal, except that the excellent song writing flows along so well and the change-ups follow each other up so effortlessly that one doesn't need to be a technical music snob to dig this immensely. As for the actual type of riffs used they mostly follow the tremolo style of Enslaved and Helheim with the occasional Thorns/Mayhem/Blut aus Nord inspired dissonance and the extended high-speed, epic, dronier passages that Nagelfar did so well; the third instrumental track has a lot of the latter and when the tremolo drone goes into overdrive and the lead-guitars start up alongside it this song just takes off. Also these lead-parts pop up often, which together with some eerie yet beautiful acoustics and clean chants is what reminds me most of Belenos.

The guitars are handled just about perfectly and the bass serves a great bluesy accompanying role. And the drums follow suit. Highly technical without being pretentious, the drums vary constantly without any stop-and-start malarkey or things to throw the rhythm off; they stay in their place while still expanding the sound tremendously. And the vocals are a hoarse shriek closest to the vocals from Weakling (which in the riff and song writing department is also a possible influence).

So how's the overall atmosphere then? Both epic and grim as expected, with a somewhat warmer vibe than most such more technical bands, reminding me again of Nagelfar and Belenos. There is indeed somewhat of a paganistic/naturalistic feeling to quite a bunch of the passages here, without necessarily jumping in your face and proclaiming the rebirth of our pagan heritage or something. It's an undercurrent or a nuance to the atmosphere which I'd only really describe as mystical with no further descriptors really fitting or even needed.

This is on the whole really high-quality material and the only negative which I can come up with is that there's not enough of it! It's only a half hour long. Although the label describes it as an EP, I don't think stores both physical and on-line are selling it at the price of an mcd. Anyway, I can't wait to hear more from these guys and what they're capable of with a full length album. So I hereby order any black metal fan reading this to buy it post-haste and thus spur them on in making more stuff, for this is an extraordinary debut!

February 29th, 2008