You've heard about space rock. Well, Samael play space metal. Not that there is such a genre definition, but this short expression describes most exactly the music of the Swiss avantgardists in verbal means. Sampled melodies, chopped guitars, a dictating growling voice, programmed drums and cosmic pictures - it is simply too hard to reach out to the music of this band - which has ignored the restricted routine of the metal style - and to remain indifferent. “Solar Soul” is a great album. It perfectly synthesizes the growing up of Samael after 1995. There is enough metal for the followers of harder music to like the effort, and electronics are thus included so not to repel these fans, but also to attract lovers of more interesting sounds. And the singing and lyrics of Vorph add incredible colour and perfection to the music. Actually, that’s the thing we receive from Samael for the last 12 years, but this time they have staked on a marching, hymn-like sound in most of the songs, which gives them a tight and uniformed look. The guitar-electro-driven melodic sights pass through each of the tracks, polishing them with this so typical for the band cosmic glance. Every song shines like a cosmic sphere with its own light and gives of its brightness to its satellites on the CD. “Solar Soul” opens the album with a hymn-like cosmic call for unity. “Slavocracy” is a tribute to the titanic “Passage”. In “Western Ground” Vorph sounds like Milan Fras of Laibach, while the music bursts out in sonar melodic feast. “On the Rise” is maybe the heaviest Samael song lately, and “Alliance” slows down the tempo with a sermon for the future generation. “Suspended Time” is an interesting innovation for the band with the inclusion of a female voice in the chorus of the otherwise typical marching sound... Enough with the oral onanism. Just listen to “Solar Soul”. If you are fans of Samael - you will understand me. If you are not - you will become.