Satariel’s third album, Hydra, was supposed to be released through Black Lotus Records. Since said label was financially unstable Satariel put Hydra out on Cold Records, who licensed this to Regain Records. Candlelight USA in turn released Hydra for the American market. This makes four labels involved in the handling of one album, which seems a bit asinine since Hydra does not involve Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in any way. An album about a pissed-off former colonel with an eyepatch fighting a worldwide terrorist organization is interesting. Another Swedish melodic death metal band with "black and doom influences" trying to compete in the modern-day In Flames sweepstakes is not. Hell, you don’t get a Salvador Dali/modern-art-influenced cover but you do get a bullshit concept album about ‘will’ and a song about rape. Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a fair trade.

How does Hydra sound, you fail to ask? Songs like "Vengeance is Hers", "Scattering the Timeweb", "Be You Angel, Be You Beast" and "The Springrise" seem influenced by The Tea Party, at least in the clean vocal approach and liberal use of acoustic passages. The kicker is that The Tea Party were firmly alternative rock and made no allusions to being metal (aside from deluded Canadian reviewers that also considered Glueleg, I Mother Earth and Econoline Crush - fuck, anything with a heavy guitar - metal), while I’m to be convinced of Satariel being heavier than that. I’m not.

Satariel aren’t entirely toothless - the band uses keyboards and female vocals sparingly - but their style of melodic death has usually never been to my tastes. There’s nothing on Hydra that keeps my interest, Hydra coming across as generic and weak. I don’t know where reviewers get the ‘black metal’ and ‘doom’ parts from since there’s nothing here that sounds like Marduk, Evoken or Darkthrone, but there are ‘gothic’ female vocals. Hydra fails to instill anything in me other than a disinterested ‘meh.’ Not that it matters - like HYDRA, if I kill Satariel two more clones will replace them. I’m surprised Satariel aren’t wearing green and yellow bodysuits at this point. Just to draw the comic book references out some more, are Satariel Life Model Decoys? I’m not a comic book geek, by the way, I just like referencing ephemera.

On a lighter note, Satariel’s lyrics include stuff like this gem from "Vengeance is Hers" (a/k/a The Rape Song): "With a plastic bag over your head/She’ll take your breath away." Wow, poetry on the level of Duran Duran and Rick Astley! Eternal Elysium haven’t had a North American outlet for five years and I know there’s more of a market for them (albeit in stoner doom, which is not a Teufel’s Tomb subgenre favourite but is still a market) here than there is for Satariel’s Hydra. This makes me want to wear an eyepatch, chomp a cigar and use CDs like this as practice targets. I should get Doctor Strange to magically send Hydra to another dimension. He’s good at shit like that. He’s the Sorceror Supreme, you know.

Written By: The Ultimate Mark