Just like their labelmates of TIAMAT, SAMAEL were subject to discussion about their future direction they might head to. "Eternal", album number five of the franco-Swiss, now shows a mixture of cold electronics and minimalism on the one side and hymnic passages with fat guitars and Vorph's characteristic voice, which shows an evolution compared to "Passage", but looking at the changes from "Ceremony Of Opposites" to "Passage", it is not a revolution anymore.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the diversity of the cold atmosphere ("Us"), hymnic choruses ("Together") or bombast ("Supra Karma"), SAMAEL's mixture of opposites give the quintet their own identity on a high level of musicalism.

Even though I fear to repeat myself, but just as TIAMAT, SAMAEL have found their own niche, which is labelled SAMAEL and SAMAEL only.

All those, who are open to stylistically foreign and modern influences, should check out this album under all circumstances, while those, who already disliked their break away from the style of their beginnings should better keep their distance from this CD.