After Ghost Brigade finished it didn’t take long before Samael got on. For me, this was every bit as big as the fact that Paradise Lost was playing later on. I’ve liked this band since the mid-nineties, and even though my live experiences of them started at a much later time, they have most certainly not disappointed me in this forum either.

After hearing the much darker and more aggressive tone they used for their latest studio effort, Above, I was more than anything else curious of how their setlist would look. Very surprisingly, only a single song from that album made it to the live stage, Black Hole, and even though the new album made me think they were taking a step towards their extreme metal roots, the majority of the songs played live were still from their more electronic era; especially songs from the Solar Soul album were prominent.
This didn’t bother me however, as I am a fan of both eras, and think that songs from the latter hold up extremely well in live situations.
It would seem that there were more than I who thought so; I didn’t watch the crowd closely, as my attention was turned to the band throughout the entire set, but it felt like there was some real energy pumped out here.

Technically, Samael weren’t as lucky as they could have been this evening however.
The sound was good, yes, but the screen which they use for their video backdrop fell down during Ghost Brigade’s set, and for some unknown reason no one bothered to put it back up again. This in combination with The Rock’s not too advanced (to say the least!) light-rig left the visual side of the performance in a poorer state than I have come to expect from these Swizz artists of the dark.

Admittedly, I did hear a few disgruntled voices after the show, and after a short chat with bassist Mas (a.k.a. Masmiseim, a.k.a. Christophe Mermod) I found out the band themselves weren’t entirely pleased with the way things turned out either; but on the other hand, call me fanboy and slap me silly, but I loved every second of it!

Setlist:

Intro
Rain
Solar Soul
Reign Of Light
Infra Galaxia
Year Zero
Western Ground
Black Hole
Into The Pentagram
Slaveocracy
Ceremony Of Opposites