SAILLE — Gnosis (review)

SAILLE — Gnosis album cover Album · 2017 · Melodic Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
adg211288
To me it doesn't seem so long ago since the Belgian black metal band Saille burst onto the scene with their impressive debut album Irreversible Decay (2011), but lo and behold it was six years ago already. A lot has happened to the band in the time between that first album and this latest one, their fourth release, Gnosis (2017). For one thing there is only one constant member in the band between the two releases, guitarist Reinier Schenk (who primarily played bass on the debut), as founder member Dries Gaerdelen has stepped down from the band full-time, though he still plays on Gnosis as a guest musician, as the band have continued as a five-piece.

Saille have always had one of those black metal sounds where it's pretty easy to pigeon-hole them in the symphonic black metal genre due to their classical influenced aspects, but such has always been an overstatement about how symphonic their music actually is. They're a melodic black metal at heart and Gnosis is no different in that respect. However where the last couple of Saille records Ritu (2013) and Eldritch (2014) felt like more of the same as Irreversible Decay and thus somewhat derivative of that first album, this one immediately strikes me as considerably more fresh. The riffs of Reinier Schenk and new guitarist Collin Boone display a progressive and technical style in some of these tracks (such as Pandaemonium Gathers and Prometheus) that even when placed within the same polished melodic black metal sound as before change the dynamic of the band a whole lot. Overall it still feels very much like a Saille album, but not a rehashed Saille album and that's one of the reasons that I enjoy it a whole lot more than the prior album Eldritch, which I felt was solid work, but also too safe and familiar. Up until this point I'd have said that Saille's releases were giving diminishing returns, but Gnosis bucks that trend in a big way.

Indeed, while their debut album Irreversible Decay still holds a special place in my black metal collection, I have to say that with Gnosis Saille have come up with what I'd easily call their next best record. The band have produced a bunch of hard hitting black metal tracks here, that convey a number of different moods and atmospheres. It's a consistent release that doesn't make me feel as if any track is filler, but the standouts have to be Pandaemonium Gathers, Thou, My Maker and the closing duo of Magnum Opus and 1904 Era Vulgaris, which flow into each other. If you like your black metal to be direct, polished and epic, then Gnosis is a damn fine album to add to your collection.
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