SATARIEL – HYDRA – CANDLELIGHT  
Hydra started well. Some metal riffing, some effective and aggressive singing, guitars… it was all going so well. Several listens later though the CD is anything but.
Hydra feels like the kind of product that might have been designed by a marketing committee for a bunch of record company executives themselves straight out of business school. All form(s) and no content, this album is a jumbled mess and mix of different styles created to cover all angles, but not doing anything effectively. The idea might be a brilliant example of terrible groupthink, but the mix is terrible. Hydra is the kind of album that would make a heavy metal fan sick were it in fact not so insignificant.
As you might have surmised, the rest of the album is part Soilwork, part a song with just female vocals and percussion, part vocal experimentation to the accompaniment of keyboards, part ‘60s cabaret and part growling over acoustic guitar.
Satariel 2006 is the type of band that will be praised to no end by the usual array of anti-metal metal reviewers, and loathed by any metal fan with any modicum of self-respect. – Ali “The Metallian”