Vorphalack (Samael) - Holocaust # 5 - 1991

In case you hadn't noticed, the Polish Holocaust 'zine definitely had its finger on the pulse of the burgeoning black metal movement well before many other publications who were, in 1991, still featuring predominantly standard death metal.

Samael, meanwhile, have long since gone on to pastures anew and avant-garde, but they begin in the late 1980s in Switzerland as a seminal second wave black metal act with a series of renowned and influential demos before at last unleashing their debut Worship Him on Osmose in 1991.  The album is incredibly dark, albeit primitive even by early black metal standards, being most heavily indebted to Hellhammer and Celtic Frost's slowest dirges and bearing only moderate resemblance to the sort of Bathory-cum-Sodom-on-phencyclidine black metal that the Scandinavians were about to thrust down the maw of the underground.  Still, it is absolutely essential listening, particularly bearing in mind that it and the songs featured thereon predate even Darkthrone's A Blaze in the Northern Sky.

Here, then, is featured an interview with guitarist/vocalist Vorphalack, conducted not long after the release of Worship Him in 1991 in Holocaust # 5.

Vorphalack (Samael) - Holocaust # 5 - 1991


AEon