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SEMARGL "Attack on God"

http://www.mylastchapter.net

There’s no possible way that I can review this album and do the opus justice with just words. It’s pure and simple a masterpiece! I can state that with ease, ‘cause I’ve never ever heard a black metal album with the same ferocious, raw and hateful approach. The vocals vary from the most raging black metal screams you’ve ever heard to deep growling and grunting. It’s just bloody marvellous how extremely raw the vocals sound. And underneath the screaming we find pulverizing drumming grinding you to death, technical and chilling riffing varying from pure black metal to more blackened death metal. To add an atmosphere to this there’s the keyboard taking place to support the hateful metal with awesome melodies. Now don’t get me wrong here, this is not melodic! More like raw black metal, containing doses of death metal, and adding some atmosphere to it all by the help of the keyboard. An absolute masterpiece. I don’t know what else to say but to command you to buy the album and witness the absolute pain and hate that is Semargl.

http://www.mylastchapter.net/recensioner/s/semargl.htm


SEMARGL "Attack on God"

http://www.maximummetal.com

The physical image of a band is generally a poor thing to base one’s critical opinion upon, but when that image is as forceful and conclusive as that of Semargl, not ‘judging the book by its cover’ is a challenge. So, unfortunately, Semargl will likely be lumped in with Impaled Nazarene, Ragnarok, and all the other bandolier-toting, pistol-sporting, and god-hating black metal bands playing fierce and unoriginal black metal, when in reality they are surprisingly different. At times, it’s difficult to even call this black metal at all. After one sifts through their treble-heavy production, high shrieked vocals, and the strophic minor chords (all orthodox techniques), there is a serious death metal foundation to a number of these songs. The second to last song exhibits nearly no black metal traits at all, instead favoring a Cattle Decapitation style vocal approach over a nearly Immolation-styled march tempo. Semargl also include a strong keyboard presence, further complicating this already unpredictable potpourri. Sometimes the keys fulfill a simple, substantiating role, fleshing out the verses with background ambience or syth strings, but more than a few songs end with lengthy classical motives that bear nearly no resemblance to their first half. The final track of ‘Attack on God’ is in fact fully dedicated to the keyboardist, or pianist in this instance, (much as the penultimate track is dedicated to a purely Death Metal track), playing an impressive original solo composition. Yet sometimes Semargl still manage to fade into the background. It is not that they lack interesting textures or a varied approach—all the elements mentioned above are easily noticeable in even the most purely black metal songs on ‘Attack on God —but rather that their songwriting is not yet at a highly developed level. They have the necessary tools and the will to write compelling, unusual music, but the aptitude is still developing. Orthodox fans of any of these included genres—death metal, symphonic and standard black metal all—may well take issue with this release for its arguable inconsistency, but as metal’s fanbase becomes ever more adaptable to multi-faceted and well-versed musicians, Semargl are more likely to be commended for being 'ahead of the curve', if not necessarily 'ahead of their time'.

http://www.maximummetal.com/reviews/revresults.asp?ID=sem_aog&idBand=1017


SEMARGL "Attack on God"

http://www.roughedge.com

Semargl, hailing from the Ukraine, were previously unknown to me and have caught me by surprise. The band’s anti-Christian stance aside, Semargl have crafted a strong set of songs that retain the black metal genre’s unfettered aggression while incorporating melody that never veers into symphonic black territory. There are occasional forays into death metal; in fact, one track entirely eschews the band’s black metal esthetic and is a full-on death metal attack (“The Sign of Chosen Names”). The vocals express great range from deep guttural screams to high pitch shrieks. The guitars are seemingly simple on the surface, but show great variation in speed and tone where appropriate. The keyboards are impressive, especially when heard in the album’s more melodic moments. The rhythm section is solid with the drummer having an important part to play in accentuating the overall mood and pace of the songs. The album features eight tracks – again, as alluded to earlier, Semargl’s overall approach is of a high quality. The first seven tracks are raging black metal while the last song serves as a keyboard-only outro – this is somewhat unique given that it does not serve as an interlude between the other songs and is quite long. “Attack On God” was produced by Semargl. The production is stellar. I know the typical approach for black metal bands is to honor their fore-bearers with less than stellar production, but the great sound and recording techniques on “Attack On God” serves this band and recording very well. Semargl: Rutarp on vocals, Equinox and Shaddar on guitars, Morthvarg on bass, Shamala on keyboards, and Kirkill on drums.

http://www.roughedge.com/cdreviews/s/semargl.htm


SEMARGL "Attack on God"

http://www.crionicmind.org

What do you know... A Ukrainian band that DOESN'T have an active member of Hate Forest, or Drudkh in it! This could be the reason why Semargl leans towards more of a mainstream form of black metal with some Dimmu Borgir influences (mostly in the synth work and overproduced sound of this album). As this album progresses, more of a "brutal" death metal edge enters into Semargl's often synth soaked and Swedish sounding (ie: melodic) blackness. From soaring, tremolo harmonies, only to degenerate into moshably crunched out rhythms where the vocals dip into cupped mic barking, the cross-genre pollination could have made more of an impact if the whole of this album wasn't so predictable. "Attack on God" benefits from the best production that money can buy, placing the right amount of emphasis on the often-impressive level of musicianship and overall technicality of this band. The slick production greatly points to this bands desire to allow the synth breakdowns where clean guitar lines offer a pleasing sense of dynamics up against the mounting brutality to be felt and attempt to lead their musical ideas into a more high-brow level of experimentation. A scathing high-end shriek and all the top notch playing found on "Attack on God" couldn't keep my attention span from wandering. There are some definite good ideas on display here, but there's no real identity that Semargl can call their own. One final point in this bands favor... At the 7:36 time sig of the track "God - Crushing Hammer", there lies this amazing outro where a subtle synth line and a very depressing clean guitar rhythm empower some very tasteful/emotive solo work. I ended up skipping back 4 times just to listen to this short, though amazing segment of music. I guess I wish there was more of that on display here to save this album from the fate of a borrowed sound and style.

http://www.crionicmind.org/wormgear/pages/reviews/S/semargl_body.html


SEMARGL "Satanogenesis"

http://www.maximummetal.com

In 2005, the Ukranian group Semargl released their debut, ‘Attack on God’. As the title suggested, it was an aggressive album, lyrically antagonistic and a challenge to standard genre definitions. Its core identity of black metal was highlighted with a number of interwoven styles, including death metal, Romantic solo piano, and power electronics, each prudently utilized within the group’s adequate songwriting abilities. Especially for a first release, it presented a strong, flexible dynamic and set a high standard for future albums to emulate. ‘Satanogenesis’ is the group’s second album, released only fourteen months after ‘Attack on God’. Traditionally, the appearance of a follow-up album that quickly indicates a particularly inspiring creative streak on the artists’ part, but this album might be performed by an entirely different band for all the resemblance (both in style and quality) it bears to their debut release. Where ‘Attack on God’ was richly textured, ‘Satanogenesis’ is shallow and repetitive; where the former was structurally complex, the latter is rehashed and wasteful. In sum: the monotony of these tracks would be droning enough on its own—the impression is twice as disappointing coming on the heels of ‘Attack on God’. ‘Satanogenesis’, on its own, might be a moderately successful straightforward black metal effort somewhat in the vein of Craft if it were not for the vocals, which have lost nearly all their erstwhile flair and assertion. For the entire album, they maintain a half-whisper, half-growl that communicates absolutely no passion to speak of. Originally rather soft, they have been turned up in the mix to compensate, resulting in overly harsh hissing of the consonants (‘s’, ‘t’, etc.) that distracts from what few decent riffs there are. The root of Semargl’s ills can be, hypothetically, traced back to the departure of two key members. Morthvarg and Shamala, lead guitars and keyboards, respectively, combined to create the lush diversity of styles that so galvanized ‘Attack on God’, and that are so absent here on ‘Satanogenesis’. Barring an unlikely reunion, it appears as though Semargl’s finest hour was also their first, passed in regrettable obscurity.

http://www.maximummetal.com/reviews/revresults.asp?ID=sem_s&idBand=1017


SEMARGL "Satanogenesis"

http://www.crionicmind.org

"Misanthropic black metal from Ukraine that transgresses morality and aims to destroy this rotten christian world! - (exclamation point mine). I love promo sheets. They're so quotably hilarious. Or maybe I'm just jealous because they get paid to write that garbage and I don't. I'm not familiar with Semargl's previous material, but "Satanogenesis" smacks of more mainstream black metal i.e Dimmu Borgir. The production is crystal clear, there are keyboard breaks and melodic guitar work, and there are attempts at atmospheric industrial sounds (hear "Protonic Zone of Hell"). Speaking of industrial elements, why is it so en vogue to incorporate random electro interludes and breaks all of a sudden? It's pretentious, annoying, and badly done. Being a metal musician does not mean you know anything about industrial. So stop it. It's occasionally effective, but usually it's just contrived and irritating. Moving on, "Satanogenesis" is so accessible that it's hard to say anything particularly bad about it. If you're looking for something innovative and fresh, skip Semargl. If you like sitting around drinking beer and headbanging with friends, you may want to give this a try.

http://www.crionicmind.org/wormgear/pages/reviews/S/semargl_body.html


SEMARGL "Satanogenesis"

http://www.voicesfromthedarkside.de/

SEMARGL used to be a potential Ukraine Black / Death Metal act earlier that changed their musical orientation very drastically in the later years, just to become - according to some articles and reviews about them, some sort of a mishmash of Dance, Pop, Trance and Electronic music and Mallcore act (the band's latest album is called "Satanic Pop Metal", released in 2012, so go figure). How dare you? Nah, gladly I don't have to stick to my fingers into such a disgusting crap. I rather try to enjoy all I can what SEMARGL used to represent in the past, which was a pretty convincingly played mixture of both Black and Death Metal. However, in 2006 these Ukraine Metallers put out their 2nd album, titled "Satanogenesis", which was a somewhat uniquely crafted album all around. This is not definitely your typical Black / Death Metal but it's been spiced up with some pretty cool, different effects and stuff. But what makes "Satanogenesis" worth listening actually, is similar catchy and striking oddities in some melody lines where Mr. Jon Nödtveidt proved to be a true master at: at those godly and magnetic melodies on the DISSECTION releases really. SEMARGL have got the same captivating magic on this record, as some parts of their songs prove it such a beautifully way. In all honesty's sake it must be said that SEMARGL have been capable of creating some dark, darn twisted and creeping atmospheres within their stuff - and hence it feels very odd that they decided to lose the type of musical formula that they already had successfully captured into the songs on "Satanogenesis". What a big shame, most definitely. However, if you can, try to get any of the band's first 4 albums for your listening pleasure - basically up to their 4th album "Ordo Bellictum Satanas", and simply do yourself a big favor and forget everything else they may have recorded after that aforementioned album in question (and thank me later for doing so).

http://www.voicesfromthedarkside.de/Albums-EPs-Demos/S/SEMARGL--8974.html?XTCsid=594038721739655dc3d56137f4f0efa2

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