SAMAEL's Long-Awaited New Album Will 'Probably' Be Released In 2026

In a recent interview with Finland's Chaoszine, SAMAEL frontman Michael "Vorph" Locher spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for the band's long-awaited follow-up to 2017's "Hegemony" album. He said: "The album is pretty much recorded. It's done, but Xy's [SAMAEL drummer Alexandre 'Xytras' Locher] still doing some adjustment with editing. We are looking for the mix. I mean, we were supposed to start mixing in January, but it didn't happen. So, it's gonna be before the summer, I will imagine, then mastering. So our plan is to release one song this year at least, and most probably the album next year then. It's not in the stone, but, yeah, that's the plan so far."

Regarding the musical direction of the new SAMAEL material, Vorph said: "Well, it will have a strong bond to 'Hegemony', but it's not the same. I mean, we kind of try to take advantage of the fact that we've done different things throughout the years. So we got some space that people will accept that this is SAMAEL. So we kind of try to enjoy that space. Some of the crowd, they enjoy [when a band sticks to a formula] — you know what you're gonna get. With us, it's a bit different, but it won't be a total surprise. There is no experimentation of things that we've never, ever done before, but the mix is different and there is a lot more guitar. It's a lot more guitar-oriented. So, yeah, that's one of the differences, I would say."

On the topic of SAMAEL's plans for the coming months, Vorph said: "We haven't planned any tour on this year. It's just gonna be [standalone] shows. We do this festival in Texas in March, and we go to Brazil. We've got three shows in Brazil, we've got two shows in Greece, some little festivals. But, basically, what we wanna do this year is finish the album. That's very much the priority. Let's hope it will happen. But I'm very confident about the material we got. It took us forever, but it happened during COVID, so we had a lot of time. We were listening the stuff together. So it was like a — I will not say a group material, because Xy's still doing all the music, but we were discussing it together, so I think it had the time to mature and to reach point where it should be."

When the interviewer noted that it is also "sometimes a little bit dangerous" when musicians spend too much time tinkering with recordings, Vorph concurred. "It is. It definitely is," he said. "I mean, all the work that Xy's doing now, for me it is not that important. Because he will play me the song and I'll say, well, 'Oh, the break there with the drums, that was not [there before], ah, it's cool, but does it make the song really better?' Ah, maybe [very little], but for him it's very important, especially because it took him so long, so he don't wanna miss one little thing… I'm a bit more, 'Let's do it.' He's really picky about everything."

Last December, SAMAEL guitarist Thomas "Drop" Betrisey took to his Facebook page to share a photo of Vorph and Xytras, along with acclaimed Swedish producer Daniel Bergstrand, and he included the following message: "The legendary Daniel Bergstrand traveled to Switzerland to produce the vocals for the upcoming SAMAEL album. The recording is now complete. New music in 2025! I can confidently say these tracks are outstanding!"

In June 2020, SAMAEL announced the addition of bassist Ales Campanelli to the group's ranks.

A former member of SYBREED, OBSYDIANS and THE ERKONAUTS, Ales had been playing with Betrisey for many years. He was no stranger to the machines-versus-humans music of SAMAEL and had known the band since its early black metal days.

Campanelli made his live debut with SAMAEL as part of Tohuwabohu, a worldwide, pay-what-you-want streaming metal event, in June 2020.

Ales joined SAMAEL as the replacement for Pierre "Zorrac" Carroz (SCARS DIVIDE, HEROD),who had played with the group since July 2018.

Longtime SAMAEL guitarist Marco "Makro" Rivao left the band in April 2018 "to do something different." Bassist Drop has since taken over guitar duties in the group.

"Hegemony" was released in October 2017 via Napalm Records.