SAILLE - Gnosis Review

Saille - Gnosis (Code666)

Release date : March 13th, 2017

The fourth album of the prolific Belgian Black Metal quintet of Saille is a concept album exploring the world of the Promethean ideal and its Luciferian counterpart. Taking inspiration from the Symphonic Black Metal that followed the Second Wave of Black Metal, Saille’s sound is closer to Windir, Dark Funeral, and Emperor than Dimmu Borgir even if they still have a clean sound and the backing of a Polish production of the Hertz studio (Behemoth, Decapitated, Vader).

Prior to listening to Gnosis, I was immaculate of Saille’s music. As to the Epic Black Metal label let me a bit intrigued of the potential interpretation of a genre that could be, Symphonic or Melodic could have bettered the Manowar adjective. Saille’s Black Metal is a modern take on Marduk and Dark Funeral early albums with fast elements of Black and Death Metal. With a strong and loud production Gnosis could be the right album for the right metalhead.

With time I generally grew tired of this mix of genres and clean production sound that reminded me of Blinded By Faith. This is a good album from Saille but in the present state of Metal I found it to be a bit on the side of a long album and not much refreshing. Everything is executed perfectly and it is almost too perfect in its whole but the genre doesn’t appeal to me anymore.

With all that said, Gnosis is a monolith of an album and it will please many metalheads that are Marduk and Dark Funeral fans. Their music has this quality in execution and raw beauty that few bands are capable of. However, this reviewer kind of felt like he is not listening to a new album but a twenty years old classic of the bands that may have influenced Saille to make music.

6.0