Snailking - Samsara review
| Band: | Snailking |
| Album: | Samsara |
| Style: | Doom metal, Sludge metal, Stoner metal |
| Release date: | October 19, 2012 |
| A review by: | BloodTears |
01. Shelter
02. In The Wake
03. Samsara
We all take different things from music, but I guess we can generally agree that what matters the most is the journey you take with a particular album. We want the music to take us to places we have never been and makes us feel/imagine things we didn't think possible. Snailking offers that kind of a journey with their debut album Samsara.
"Shelter", "In The Wake" and "Samsara" are the songs Snailking have to offer us. Too little, you say? No, the songs are all over the ten-minute mark (okay one is nine minutes long) and our senses aren't spared. This Swedish trio is capable of producing an immense wall of sound of the colossal and muddy kind of sludge. Their sound is full and they appear to be highly influenced by Yob. The vocals are chaotic and suit the music to perfection. Expect disorienting moods as well as plentiful doomy parts.
The title track is the highlight of the album because it is more incisive, charismatic and shows off clearly their good riff repertoire. Unlike the first two tracks, "Samsara" starts off swiftly and is more high-tempo far and wide. "Shelter" and "In The Wake" are more experimental, fuzzy, slow, at times excruciatingly slow. Nevertheless, all three have in common their experimental nature, with muffled sounds, feedback and all kinds of weird effects, and are as heavy and unforgiving as a tidal wave.
However, when you have long songs, it is crucial to establish dynamic links to keep the listener interested and that isn't always the case on Samsara. Sometimes, the repetition goes too far, it stretches too much. Like a giant crawling out of the mud that takes too long to form. Overall though, the band seems to have good ideas that can be structured better. Snailking is a well-oiled machine with minor malfunctions that gets the job done when it really gets going. And while Samsara doesn't reinvent the wheel, it gives it a good spin.
 | Written on 16.03.2013 by News chief, random reviewer, professional progger and wannabe surfer. |
Comments
Comments: 4
Visited by: 117 users
| Auntie Sahar Drone Empress Posts: 5989  |
When I originally saw this under the New Releases tab, both the band name and album title piqued my interest. "Samsara," if you don't know, refers to the repetitive cycle of birth, life, and death, in Hinduism, Buddhism, and a lot of those other Eastern religions. Sounds a little less psychedelic than I was expecting from both of the names, and more on the sludgey side from what you describe in this review, but I'll still give it a peek when I get off my ass and around to it 
---- I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go. ~ II. VII
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| BloodTears ANA-thema Elite Posts: 11835  |
Written by Auntie Sahar on 16.03.2013 at 16:27 Yes, the concept around the name is interesting. I also really like the cover even though it's simple. Don't know if it's your thing though. It's streaming on their Bandcamp page so you can check it out there.
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| Susan Smeghead Elite Posts: 6941  |
Well I don't know about you guys but I'm damn intrigued by this!!! Nice review 
---- "A life all mine Is what I choose At the end of my days" --The Gathering "A Life All Mine" from Souvenirs
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| Skøllgrim Northern Posts: 389  |
I wonder if the bandname is any reference to Ufomammut's 2004 release? The style they play is sludgy, doom psychedelic stuff as well.
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