CD, Saemskin Recordings, 2007
www.saemskin.com
The first track on the album (Soldier’s Eye) happens to be the best track on the album. Within the noise subsists an algorithmic demeanor that makes one feel like resigning to tendencies – to acts of an almost human nature. Somehow Saemskin assists one to detach oneself from the autonomic Sterling lobster world that so many ‘Normalites’ seem to take pleasure in.
This album might be considered a little dark, perhaps even slightly nihilistic, but this is what a mundane planet needs to de-possess itself of trivial audiophonics. Saemskin might not be the best produced album, but it is certainly a courageous one. The tracks are extensive narrations of a surreal dimension populated by musical monsters; one that accepts hallucination as contractile fact.
Moments of disjointed sequences exist. Some vocal utterances aren’t as modulated as one would hope it to be. Sequence acceleration often feels lethargic. The electronic membrane of Saemskin is perhaps still too tactile. But there lurk some festering octaves just below its surface that will not fade into commercial nothingness. Saemskin may still linger in its pupa phase of proto-industrial lounge music, but it is destined to become much more than that.
I believe the first foundations have been laid for the nativity of orchestral melodies for speed-metal mutants. For now, Saemskin will serve as anti-aesthetic background music suggestive of excremental family values, pedantic automatons and anal annihilation. I would love to dance to Saemskin, but for now I’ll move to it as I would a ritualistic lawnmower ballet.
[6/10]
— Ras Steyn