(Our Hanoi-based contributor Vizzah Harri prepared the following review and recommendation of the latest album by Tennessee-based black metal band Saidan, which was released about a week ago.)
Realizing that my writeups are overlong in this age of mass-consumption and shortening attention spans, I attempted writing with a number in mind. I’m a simple soul, so I went for 666 words on an album worthy of a master’s thesis.
Now for something not completely different, as in, not if you’ve been following black metal of the divergent kind closely. There is a refreshing movement in black metal towards something of a vaporwave aesthetic, which I for one can’t get enough of. Saidan consists of Tyler Sellers as Splatterpvnk on vox, guitars and bass, and Hunter Valentine as Hundosai on drums.
I’m never that good with FFO recommendations, but if you imagine what it would sound like if you put Trhä, Stormkeep, middle-era Deafheaven, Skeletonwitch and Sigh as an algorithm into the Red Dwarf Vending Machine, you might get an idea of what Saidan is up to. Unhinged vocal delivery, high-point of thrash slash hard core-ish breakdowns, stadium-anthemic licks, punk esthetic and appeal, and dare I say vaporwave perception.
Saidan don’t just submit to the altar of one particular influence, but their music certainly has the propensity to compel one to kneel at theirs, for Saidan means altar in Japanese (祭壇). One could assume without any browsing that they in fact hail from the land of the rising sun, going by the anime cover of a Japanese student which the album’s concept was created around. Saidan is from Nashville, Tennessee, which makes sense for a band that alchemizes style, defies categorization and are comfortable with departure from the norm.
To paraphrase (read: liberally steal) from their Bandcamp page, the album takes us “on a journey through a necrophilic hell and follows the morbid life, death, & afterlife of a student as they quickly drift further into unredeemable mental despair. While musically Saidan offers a beautifully violent take on the sound of classic Black Metal with a modern Punk twist; delivering malicious riffs, rapid leads, nonstop fist pumping hooks. [sic] and heart pounding drum work, all wrapped in a Raw Black Metal bow. Inspired by Black Metal and Punk legends of the past; Saidan looks towards the future by staying true to themselves and delivers an album that is unhinged, chaotic, and raw.”
I bow to labels and musicians who have better writing chops than I do.
There is not a song on this album unworthy of a mention, so we’ll try to keep this short. Desecration of a Lustful Illusion opens with the ’90s internet dialup sound, something many a music afficionado has probably thought of using, I’m one, and possibly something that does exist somewhere else too… and if you’d excuse the indie-pop links I just subjected you to, Saidan does not flinch from being influenced by eclecticism as far and wide as not just J-horror but also J-rock.
They recorded two fantastically kvlt VHS-suffused videos. Lovely offbeat straights amongst the Brann Dailor penchant for fills: or as a drummer buddy of mine likes to say: all fill, with some straights to keep it this side of the Twilight Zone. Or as Transmissions From The Dark put it: “what better way to herald its arrival than a promo video stacked with debonair badassery, flaming swords, rooftop solos and VHS flicker, smashed into orbit by the ferocious grandiosity of the music.”
The first half of the album rips past so fast that by the time you get to the brief melodic interlude of the aptly titled Seraphic Lullaby there’s little time to even take a breath before the record jolts forward again into the depths of a dungeon bacchanal of Dionysian proportions with Veins of the Wicked.
A second ‘VHS-ripped’ creation exists online for Tears Seeping Through Beautiful Agony which is a throwback in visual appeal, and though the vocals blissfully sear with a vitalism only found in the rawest of the black arts, the music dances between emotive sedation and reanimating force juxtaposed to the slasher-core poetics of the lyrics.
The last straight-up metal track opens with an Edmund Kemper quote, “I would have killed until they gunned me down…” and as a sign-off, a title track and an album anchor it does not disappoint. Slathered with all the ingredients Saidan has peppered their third and strongest full-length to date, one need only glance at the maximalist grandiosity of the poetry in the lyrics to realize that they have a visceral understanding for their subject matter:
“demonic symmetry bubonic memories catastrophic injuries chopped up skinless discolored agonies monotone tragedies craved out anatomy limitless gore
“mutilation desecration fervently symphonic terror illustrated by humanity’s greed isolation separation urgency melodic violence complicated by insanity’s need”
In the final instalment, suffer, the album concludes with the voice of our subject, a fitting and jarring end to the mellifluous horror of what came before.
There’s nothing square about Saidan or the vibrations their creation emanates, set squarely however in a new form of alternative in black metal that defies boxing in, forward-thinking, genre-bending, expectations-ascending. There’s enough packed into this album for afficionados of the strange, seekers of that next catchy as hell riff, melodic dissidence and furibund vocals fit for the rawest of the art accoutered with strings and percussion running the gamut of vomitorium stampede-inducing thrashed-up pestiferous magnificence, galvanized leads and truly intricate and rousing melodicism.
https://www.instagram.com/saidan.metal/
https://www.facebook.com/SaidanUSBM/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1nsKjxqVoGG8Lifi1FeUWV
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3kZEwvsKRBuGl8wJMa6spg
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/saidan/1567690733