Band:	Amaseffer
Album:	Slaves For Life
Style:	Oriental folk metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	June 09, 2008
A review by:	Jeff

01. Sorrow
02. Slaves For Life
03. Birth Of Deliverance
04. Midian
05. Zipporah
06. Burning Bush
07. The Wooden Staff
08. Return To Egypt
09. Ten Plagues
10. Land Of The Dead

Israel is maybe not the most famous Metal country but obviously the Metal scene there is probably one of the most intelligent and innovative one. If we have some legendary bands like Orphaned Land, Salem, or Blackfield (which is half British of course) we have now a new pretender and definitely this is something! With their first release which features a lot of amazing guests, the guys of Amaseffer already prove that we will have to keep their names in our minds, "Slaves For Life" is an exceptional and original epic release.

"Slaves For Life" is the first part of a trilogy about the history of the people of Israel as portrayed in the old testament. It seems to be a trend for the Israel bands to talk about religion but the historical context of this story is really interesting and attractive and the album is definitely not pompous. The lyrics and the concept of the album are two important points of course but the music is probably the thing which attracted me the most. Amaseffer plays some kind of Epic Progressive Metal with a lot of Oriental folk sonorities. This is beautiful, deep and so epic that it sounds a bit like the music of a movie. The songs are long, complex with a lot of different passages which speeches or real vocals and the performances of Mats Levens and Kobi Farhi are just amazing. This is not especially fast or catchy, I mean that the songs are long and "tell" us a story so you can have long musical breaks like real classic passages with choruses, verses etc. Amaseffer music is a bit similar to the one of the "Mabool" (Orphaned Land's last album) with this alternation of big riffs and more melodic passages but this is definitely more Progressive and less direct. This is not really problematic but "Slaves For Life" is an album that you'll have to listen to from the beginning to the end to understand it completely.

The three musicians of the band are great compositors and great performers and they had the good idea to invite people like Mats Levens or Angela Gossow to sing on the songs. The final result is really coherent and the production of Markus Teske is just wonderful (and cannot be compared to the average one of "Mabool" for example). The different folk instruments play when they have to play, this is never "too much". "Slaves For Life" is not an easy of access album but it's a catchy one nonetheless with original ideas and even if it could maybe be boring for someone who just wants to have fun listening to music with songs with simple structures, this is at least perfect for the ones who like Progressive music.

"Slaves For Life" is a great discovery and one of the albums which has enchanted me this year. As you know this is not a simple album and you clearly have to like Oriental folk music (including acoustic guitars, female vocals etc) to fully enjoy this release but if you're looking for something special and extremely deep, "Slaves For Life" is highly recommended. Let's hope that the next stage of the story will follow the steps of this first album. I'm already waiting a lot of this future album and I'm convinced that Amaseffer will become a really famous combo.