Samsas Traum – Best Of / Leben Bedeutet Kämpfen (DCD Album – Trisol)
Genre/Influences: Goth-metal.
Content: And here’s one more release for Samsas Traum and its legendary front man Alexander Kaschte. “Leben Bedeutet Kämpfen” is a very special album, which might be considered a kind of consecration.
First of all there’s (once more), an impressive artistic package becoming the trademark of Trisol. This DCD appears in a 7” format digipak featuring 2 discs and a cool booklet filled with information. The booklet is filled with numerous pictures, articles and an illustration of their complete discography. The only minus about the booklet is that it’s written in the German language, which is a pity for all non-German speakers. However, Samsas Traum for sure is mainly popular and successful in Germany while the band is not that renowned outside their homeland.
Each disc features 17 songs revisiting the impressive discography of Samsas Traum, which officially started in 1999 with the album “Die Liebe Gottes – Eine Märchenhafte Black Metal Operette”. Notice by the way that all the albums have been released by the Trisol group. From the very first releases on, Samsas Traum clearly deals with a mixture of gothic and metal music. The early songs sometimes were a bit hesitant revealing a band in search of its sound identity. It might explain some medieval influences on a few tracks. “Für Immer” is a great song that was originally released on the “Oh Luna Mein”-album. The song is a bit more electro-minded, but this album already features the impressive metal guitar parts, which made the band that successful. Kaschte’s timbre of voice often appears to be possessed by an evil force, but on other parts he also shows a rather theatrical way of singing (cf. “Dies Ist Kein Traum”).
The 1st disc starts to be really interesting when it gets back to songs like “Ein Foetus Wie Du – Komm Auf Mein Begräbnis, Baby!”. This track sounds a bit rock’n’roll like getting us back to 2003 and the album “Tineoidea Oder: Die Folgen Einer Nacht”. The album “A.Ura Und Das Schnecken.Haus” features the very artistic “Endstation Eden” showing a more refined taste in the global writing.
Some epic arrangements progressively join in while the songs become heavier and more powerful. There are 2 bonus songs on the 1st disc, which were originally released on bonus CDs (limited editions). “Satanas” is a pretty and powerful rock-goth song to bring the 1st disc to a good ending.
The 2nd disc starts in 2007 and the album “Heiliges Herz – Das Schwert Deiner Sonne”. Samsas Traum here deals with pure dark metallic power music. The fusion of metal and gothic music has never been so heavy and injected by pure testosterone. “Auf Den Spiralnebeln” and “Hirte Der Meere” both are alluring epic pieces, which in a way were announcing a heavier direction in the band’s history. The diabolic vocals of A. Kaschte are excelling on multiple songs, but I was especially impressed by his performance on “Heiliges Hertz”. The debut of the 2nd disc will really leave you breathless. Samsas Traum sounds merciless and finally moves until reaching a brief break on the quieter and ballad-minded “Barfuβ” taken from the album “13 Jahre Lang Dagegen – Anti Bis Zum Tod”.
The power comes back and moves towards heavy guitar solos on “Das Ist Liebe”. The song “Stirb, Kindlein, Stirb” is one of the most melodic pieces on the album featuring nice female-male vocal parts. The disc ends with 3 more bonus tracks.
Ten full lengths of Samsas Traum are represented. Even the last opus “Asen’ka – Ein Märchen Für Kinder Und Solche, Die Es Werden Wollen” has been considered as well.
Conclusion: An outstanding and complete ‘best of’ bringing 34 songs of Samsas Traum back to life, but several songs already belong to the collective memory of their fans.
Best songs: “Tineoidea”, “Ein Name Im Kristall”, “Hirte Der Meere”, “Heiliges Hertz”, “Stirb, Kindlein, Stirb”.
Rate: (Elise Din:8)ED.
Band: www.samsas-traum.net / www.facebook.com/pages/Samsas-Traum/45202007749
Label: www.trisol.de / www.facebook.com/pages/Trisol-Music-Group/104166526285471
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