Self-Proclaimed Existence

I’ve got this record with Thrash ’Em All magazine, where it was added along with Elysium’s “Godfather” album. I decided, that if I don’t like one of these two albums, I’ll give it a bad review on Metal Archives, he he… So here is a review of “Self-Proclaimed Existence”.

Sammath Naur makes music in a style I would call ‘progressive black/death metal’ - extreme music with complex drumming, lots of tempo relaxations, atmospheric parts with acoustic guitars, keyboards all over etc. The vocals are mixed - some typical black metal shrieks, some death metal growls… The keyboards try to add a futuristic, cosmic feel or imitate an orchestra or a piano. The bass is audible and tries to play non-standard things, the guitars are - obviously in metal - sharp and the drummer plays different beats: blast beats, some disco-like stuff…

I’ll be honest - I didn’t throw this CD out the window after the first listening only because I liked the calm parts with the acoustic guitar. I decided I’ll give them another chance and I listened to it again, but I just got tired listening to this. Then I gave them another chance… as a result I was bored to death. I didn’t find anything, that would save this album from being total crap. I gave it some points, because these guys are somewhat skilled musicians - it’s a pity they play such worthless music. They’re weak composers - the arrangements are messy and chaotic, the band changes the atmosphere of the songs without any logical consequence and it’s all just noisy and boring. Every instrument tries to be in front at once and play the main role, no clarity or selectivity, too many ideas at a time… This is not a good way to make a song. Actually, it all has more of a senseless and noisy scrapheap of ideas than a typical composition. The vocals didn’t save anything, as the shrieks are weak and the growls are average. Oh yeah, and the terrible “meep, meep, meep” of the keyboards is just laughable, and the snare drum sounds a bit like a tin can - so you can imagine the overall result is terribly weak.

My advice: if you want something progressive, listen to some Pink Floyd, and if you want something aggressive, listen to good old Slayer. If you want something that’s progressive and aggressive at a time, get some Death (obviously) or try out Respawn - a young and promising band from Berlin. But whatever you do, avoid this here Sammath Naur.