Review by Vladimir on January 2, 2023.

When it comes to black metal bands, even in the US scene, there are plenty of fish in the sea, but there are some fish that are quite distinct in their own way. Case and point are the two-piece band Saidan from Nashville, Tennessee, spearheaded by Splatterpvnk and Hundosai. This band was recommended to me by a friend and fellow colleague, and although I usually skip on any recommendations either due to a lack of time or just general disinterest, this actually piqued my interest. If somebody mentioned to me that these two gentlemen blend black metal music with themes of Japanese horror and ghost stories, one might feel a bit skeptical about the overall execution and believe that this is just a work of people, or perhaps weeaboos who “unironically” watch generic anime and read manga with a very stretched plot, while listening to some obscure black metal. At first, I did feel a bit like that because I think that there’s just far too much weird stuff going on with this subgenre that it just keeps getting weirder and far less attractive, but I figured “what the hell, I’ll give it a chance, what have I got to lose?”. Their second full-length album Onryō II: Her Spirit Eternal will be the topic of today’s review, which was released on Jems Label on April 15th 2022. So, what is the supposed “love product” of Japanese horror and black metal?

Another thing that had me worried was that this would be some blackened metalcore/deathcore band like Lorna Shore, because that has become a very frequent feature in the US metal scene nowadays, which would definitely not be my cup of tea. Luckily, not only was I wrong, I was actually quite surprised and impressed with the true nature of Saidan, and I learned my lesson again that a book should never be judged by its cover. This is actually pretty oldschool black metal, with very raw tremolo guitar riffs, beautiful guitar melodies and solos, double-bass drums, synths and shrieking vocals. Tracks 'Queen Of The Haunted Dell' and 'Girl Hell 1999' have some catchy mid-tempo riffing and drumming going on, but I have to mention that on the second track 'Queen Of The Haunted Dell', there is also a very punk riff with d-beat drumming that switches to an unexpected thrash metal-like breakdown that goes back to punk and d-beat. The fourth track 'Kate' is an acoustic interlude with calm clean singing which bridges the gap in the middle, before continuing to slice and dice everything with black metal. Another thing that should be mentioned is that the fifth track 'Pale Imitation' has some interesting and very direct lyrics of mockery which you should definitely read with a dose of morbid curiosity. The sixth track 'Yuki Onna' has an awesome tremolo riff with traditional sounding Japanese melodies, which has interesting conceptual lyrics about Yuki Onna (Japanese for “snow woman”), the famous spirit in Japanese folklore. The cover art for Onryō II: Her Spirit Eternal, which is beautiful by the way, was that one key visual aspect that had me worried at first which made me misjudge the band before actually listening to the music, and I have to say that the songwriting and the visual representation do go together quite well. The sound production has very primitive and raw guitar tone, shrieking vocals with added vocal distortion and very atmospheric synths that in fact work with the general aesthetics and themes, even with Japanese traditional instruments on the track 'Yuki Onna'.

I clearly got off the wrong foot when I wanted to give this band a try, but I was fortunate enough to have finally heard it. I’d usually prefer Japanese folklore and black metal in the case of actual Japanese bands since I do like a few of them, but in the case of Saidan I do think that they did everything with brilliance and clear conscience, what made me realize in the end that it didn’t turn out to be a bunch of pretentious musicians trying to express their personal tastes and interests in foreign legends and cultures like some clueless teenagers. This album deserves all the love it needs, especially from those who like black metal and Japanese horror and ghost stories. Check it out!

Rating: 9.1 out of 10