After a six-year gap from their last album, Lux Mundi, Samael are issuing their eleventh album, Hegemony. Though the album continues on the electronic/industrial path Samael have long been on, Hegemony also draws influence from the band’s black metal roots, which earned them such accolades as a Decibel Hall of Fame induction for 1991’s Worship Him. Listen to new song “Black Supremacy” below and keep reading for an interview with guitarist/vocalist Vorph.
It has been six years since the last Samael record, Lux Mundi. How has Samael changed since then, and how does it reflect in the music on Hegemony?
With Solar Soul and Lux Mundi, we’ve tried to make sense of all the different side of our sound, we’ve created the base on which Hegemony has been built. In the last six years, Xy spent a year working on a neo classical album compose for the city we’re coming from. That album, released under the name Sedunum probably had an influence on the new material .
Samael originally started as a black metal band before experimenting and moving toward industrial and electronic metal. How much of the old sound—if any—did you consciously try to include on Hegemony?
We spent two consecutive years playing our album Ceremony of Opposites in its entirety and that
helped us connect with our past. Hegemony has its roots in the past but it’s a step forward for our
music.
What themes and ideas were you writing about on Hegemony?
Hegemony is an album that reflect our time. More than anything we’ve done so far, that album has direct connections with the world we’re living in. Songs like “Rite of Renewal” or “Land of the Living” deal with the circle of life and the idea of rebirth, “Black Supremacy” is an hommage to our favorite color, “Dictate of Transparency” is about the obsession of self representation and its consequences, while “Against All Enemies” is a more introspective song.
Hegemony is out October 13 on Napalm Records.
