Semlah – Semlah

Releasedate: 27-03-2009; Label: Cyclone Empire
By: Sabine van Gameren

Semlah is a power doom band from Sweden.The released their first release “Semlah” on 27-03-2009 via Cyclone Records.

The Swedes conming from Stockholm got together in 2001. After releasing a demo in this year and a mcd in 2004 it took them 5 years to come up with this debut release. Powerdoom is an interesting combination of metal. Genre’s who’s stereotypes are far away from each other brought together go even horribly well together or are doomed to fail.
It takes a while to get into the music that Semlah presents. Soon you start thinking which aspect of this band you like more, making the music compete with it selves. This might not always be the most easiest path to choose as a band as you have enough concurrency of the complete music scene anyway. For Semlah counts that it is definitely the power aspect that wins! Vocals tend to turn into horrible screaming as soon as they tend to step of the traditional power metal way of singing. Not pleasant at all.
The bass is thick this with the calm, not too dominant drums make the doom elements justified. The riffs are teasing a bit, bringing you in the expectation of getting a typical doom vocals as in most of the songs it takes a while before the vocals come in. whether this surprise is a pleasant one depends if you are into power metal. Those who are not charmed by this genre will surely feel betrayed. The typical powermetal fan will be surprised by the instrumental part which had the keyrole in this album anyway.

This music asks for openminded music lovers. Interesting to see how Semlah mixes up the genres and creates some thing quite unique out of it.

Line Up:
Joleni – Vocals
Thomas Johnson – Guitars
Tommy “Wilbur” Eriksson – Bass
Johannes Berg – Drums

Tracklist: 1. From The Seat Of False Judgement 2. Path Of A Waning Moon 3. Axioms Of Life 4. Perennial Movement III 5. Machination 6. Manifestations Obscure 7. Perennial Movement II 8. Frayed Wings 9. Beyond Salvation 10. My Spirits Fail 11. Havoc

Links:
Semlah MySpace
Semlah Official