Seraphel - Remembrance review artwork

Rating: 7.0

Country: Italy

Release Date: 2007

Track list:
1. World Wide Vulture
2. Motionless Torrent
3. Introducing The Dominance
4. A Child Called Shit (Two Minutes Hate)
5. The New Conciousness
6. Where Dead Children Feed The Street
7. One Size Fits All
8. Victory Mansions

Band Website: Seraphel

Seraphel - Remembrance

Naregh - Vocals
Sytry - Guitars
Eligor - Bass
Ajm - Drums

Remembrance was originally a demo conceived a while back in 2004 and has been given a full cd re-release courtesy of Khaozstar Records (of whose roster I've already reviewed the great debut by Plutonium). Seraphel, of origin Italian, sound like they could have come from Sweden, around say 1996 or so, playing in that fast, blast-beat filled, melodic tremolo riff-style invented by bands like early Dark Funeral, Marduk, Naglfar, Svartsyn and Setherial, after which it pretty much became a global thing for a while.

Having established that, the question rises, do they actually add anything to that particular style or do they fall into the norsecore trap? I can thankfully say that they certainly aren't norsecore; the blast-beats aren't constant and there are plenty of breaks and thrashier riffs to break up the tremolo, so this is most definitely closer to good acts like Svartsyn instead of the crap vomited forth by something like Dark Funeral. There are some pretty nice non-standard things here, like the acoustic guitar parts during the opener "Eternity in Darkness" or the soulful more traditional metal melodies during the latter half "Last Death Struggle", as well as some pretty damn epic progressions during for example "Remembrance" and "Slaves of Despair". Yet for every good idea here, there is a derivative tremolo riff that you've simply heard before in both great as well as crappy bands and it can get depressing that just when you're getting into some great riff segment, you're suddenly confronted by Naglfar riff #15 accompanied by the standard blast-beat from Norse Metal 101, page 2. Still, one does need to remember this is a three year old demo and this does have enough good ideas to show that a full length album released by these guys right now could have some serious potential. After all, a band like the Dutch Sauron started off in somewhat the same way and look how amazing they turned out to eventually be.

Technique wise everything is top-notch: precise, varied drumming, great guitar playing skills, a competent black metal scream, some pretty impressive backing bass guitar (that could use slightly more prominence in the mix) and an amazing production job. This is nowadays perhaps less uncommon than it used to be, but it's still fantastic to see bands getting it so perfect right from the get-go on their first demo as far as the overall sound goes.

So, what's the final verdict then? Anyone into supporting up and coming underground bands showing genuine promise should definitely check this out. Even though I've mentioned a bunch of negatives, the more standard Swedish patterned riffs aren't actually bad in and of themselves, and the more unique parts show definite style and promise and the positives far outweigh the negatives. This band could go places. If you're tired of hearing another harsh, fast and melodic black metal band in the Swedish style, this probably won't rock your world, but if you're a fan of the style then you could do a lot worse than Seraphel.

November 2nd, 2007