One thing I always like about Sweden is the amount of bands that are coming from that country. Especially the melodic death metal bands are most of the time my favourites. Satariel, also from Sweden, can easily be added to this list. With their previous album Hydra they showed up in the frontlines and recently they released Chifra, an EP just to let us know that they're still around.

 

This EP contains 4 songs that will not be present on their next album. Starting with ‘Hogtied Angel’, which is also present as a videoclip on this disc, the typical voice of Pär Johansson gives me shivers from the beginning. In both the brutal parts as well as the melodic parts Pär Johansson shows again that he’s an exceptional vocalist with a great vocal range. In which some cases he takes advantage of the clean voice too easily in my opinion if you compare this with their previous album Hydra that has a bit more balls.

 

Of course the band is still evolving with that sound and that will probably include more clean vocal parts on the next album. On the other hand, when you’re listening to the song ‘Chifra’ itself, the vocals are a great smack in the face and I realise that sometimes it’s also great to have a good combination of brutal and clean parts in a song. Maybe it’s just only the song ‘Slithering’ that I’m not very fond of. Probably because it contains those cheesy guitar riffs that make me feel like I’m one of those hippie wannabees singing kumbayaa along the campfire.

 

With the rest of the EP is nothing wrong, only that one song that I really don’t like. On the contrary, the other songs are, although they are a bit softer, great songs that make me very curious of their next album. This EP will probably find its way to the fans of melodic death metal.