SAILLE – Forebode

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6.5

• Bands:
  SAILLE
• Duration: 00:52:06
• Available from: 02/13/2026
• Label:

• We do not Serviam Records

Streaming not yet available

After a break for stylistic reorganization and geographical relocation (the band, initially originally from Belgium, has now definitively established its headquarters in Holland), the symphonic/epic black metallers Saille are back on track with a brand new album, entitled “Forebode”, ready for publication on Non Serviam Records.
This, at least, is what the band declared in the official press release, yet it is rather difficult to agree with the definition of 'full-length' that we give of this work, in which there are only four new songs (one of which is an instrumental interlude lasting just a minute), for a total of around twenty minutes of entirely new music; the rest of the tracklist is completed by a new version of “Haunter Of The Dark” (song taken from the second album “Ritu” of 2013), by an expanded version of the song “Eater Of Worlds” (originally published on the album, “Eldritch” of 2014, to which new orchestral parts were added), and by three songs (“Maere”, “Tephra” and “Plaigh Allais”) recorded live (with the participation of a violinist in flesh and blood) at the Metal Méan Festival and the Graspop Metal Meeting.

However, the present material gives us the opportunity to test the state of health in the Saille house at the dawn of this 2026. According to the band's declarations, the intention would be to reclaim the atmospheres that characterized their early works, largely abandoning the temptations attributable to the 'muscular' blackened death metal of their most recent efforts, in favor of a more epic and more classically black approach; intentions that translate into reality as soon as the first notes of the opener “Deception Of Decadence” begin to spread through the air.
It is in fact very easy to find the Saille of “Irreversible Decay”, “Ritu” and “Eldrich” in the tremolo picking riffs and orchestrations that characterize the unfolding of this song, as well as in the epic and melancholic atmospheres that outline its emotional inspiration.
Echoes of the 'median' Borknagar and the less experimental Vintersorg can be discerned throughout the entire composition (especially when the singer Jesse Peetoom abandons the scream to launch into evocative clean vocals), even if the most evident stylistic references in our proposal return to being the post-“Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” Dimmu Borgir and the early Carach Angren.

The recent black/death temptations come back to life when the rhythms drop and the riffs become denser and fuller, as happens in the central part of the song, but in general ours manage to maintain a coherent atmosphere from start to finish, creating a rather convincing composition.
Leaving aside the brief interlude “Echoes Of Emphaty” (although intriguing in its development of vocal intertwining with almost Gregorian tones), the two remaining unreleased songs, the furious “Cycle Of Cynism”, punctuated by a relentless blast-beat, and the more atmospheric and dark “Reminiscence Of Regrets”, enriched by 'Swedish' echoes of the Dissection school, do nothing but confirm the attempt undertaken by the Saille to reclaim their more purely symphonic black nature, with absolutely appreciable results.

The new versions of “Haunter Of The Dark” and “Eater Of Worlds” also fall into the same path, darker and, in some ways, even more 'old-school symphonic black' than the originals – especially the first, while the expanded version of “Eater Of Worlds” showcases all the mastery developed by Saille regarding the purely symphonic component of their proposal – while the live revivals of “Maere”, “Tephra” and “Plaigh Allais”, although excellently interpreted and recorded (the presence of an authentic violinist certainly gives an intriguing touch to the pieces), they add little to the substance of a work which is by its very nature interlocutory, which leaves good sensations regarding the future path of Saille, but which will certainly need to be followed by a more substantial and structured work in order to find the necessary confirmations.