We’re proud to announce and orchestrate the ascension of Samiarus, a new black/death metal horde rising from within the thriving SF Bay Area punk and metal scene, and whose terror-engulfing debut EP “Reign Destroyer” is on the launch ramp for a late April 2025 release via Sentient Ruin. The gruesome short player has been teased by rising extreme metal blog Toilet Ov Hell, who in premiering the track “New Iron Age” have remarked how the release introduces a “new era that is not built on faith and reason, but on smashed faces and encroaching decay” and that the band’s music is “dirty, gross blackened death metal“ - you can check out the feature and the track HERE.
Samiarus (or Samyaza as more widely known in Aramaic) is the Arabic name of the leader of the Watchers in apocryphal abrahamic scriptures, a rebel angel who shared knowledge with men and birthed the Nephilim, becoming a danger to divine power and law and turning into the absolute usurper. Conceived from within the SF Bay Area punk and metal underground (by current and past members of Abnutivum, Meth Sores, Flesh Dungeon, Doomsday, Slaughteruin, Abstracter and Mentor), emerging black/death metal terrorists Samiarus embody their namesake concept of abysmal occult usurpation to the boldest through their debut EP “Reign Destroyer”, a twenty three minute siege of blown out, bestial sonic upheaval fuming from the iron jaws of terror. While deliberately embracing the cruelty and darkness of the war metal movement developed by bands like Blasphemy and Archgoat, Samiarus’ own formulaic sonic design for the gruesome deposition of all oppressors has brought in a number of other influences to further weaponize their subversive terroristic vision. These influences mainly come from punk and hardcore bands like G.I.S.M., Doom, Raw Nerve, Cult Ritual, Discharge and Siege, as well as from some of the band members’ interest in certain strains of industrial and noise music. A concoction of retaliative audial tactics that has ultimately shaped an anarchic war-torn sonic scourge grueling with dismal reflections on the human condition and on society’s worst embodiments.
Samiarus’ debut “Reign Destroyer” EP is slated for an April 25 2025 release via Sentient Ruin on LP, CD, MC, and digital formats worldwide.
Samiarus initially began to take shape from within the Oakland punk scene. Guitarist SR had been a long time member of raw punk and hardcore bands from San Jose and Oakland like Meth Sores, Flesh Dungeon, Outfit and Ötzi, etc., and began writing riffs for a new metal project around 2022. The songs were proposed to fellow punk JM, a local drummer with endless hours of militancy in innumerable Oakland punk and hardcore bands like Mentor, Fentanyl, Spy, and many more. The lineup was solidified when fellow San Jose guitarist and Meth Sores bandmate JKL (also from San Jose black metal cult Abnutivum as well as from black metal/noise solo project Slaughteruin) joined on lead guitar. This initial lineup of SR, JM, and JKL rehearsed for several months with SR handling vocals and issued the self-recorded “Eradicating Wind” digital promo track via Bandcamp, first introducing the band’s blown out and vitriolic strain of chaotic, punk-infused black/death metal. Meanwhile JKL had been in touch over convergent musical interests with Oakland vocalist MA (also of Abstracter, ex-Atrament, Ash Prison, Somnolent, Isolant etc.) who heard the band’s rough rehearsal recordings, and inspired by the band’s uniquely feral and uncontained sound, offered to join as vocalist, allowing SR to focus solely on guitar, and developing the band’s concept with lyrics about subversion, terrorism, occult retaliation, and treacherous cults wielding supernatural powers and warfare for the sanguinary overthrowing of despots. The final piece was added when the band’s mutual friend GD (from Oakland hardcore thrashers Doomsday) joined on bass, rounding out a five-piece unit of uncompromising intents. With a lineup complete and several songs written, the band recorded six tracks (five originals and one Absu cover) in their rehearsal room with aid from local audio engineer Carlos Cruz, with one original (“Eradicating Wind”), the Absu cover, as well as a live rehearsal recording being mixed and mastered by the band themselves and then self-released in early 2025 as the debut “Demonstration” demo tape. Meanwhile, all the tracked original songs were sent to audio engineer Steven Henningsgard in Minnesota to be professionally mixed, and then handed off to Will Killingsworth of Dead Air Studios to be mastered for subsequent release as the “Reign Destroyer” debut EP/MLP, the band’s first proper full-fledged recording of original material, to be released in spring 2025 by Sentient Ruin. Around the same time as the “Demonstration” demo was released, Samiarus had already taken their lawless audial carnage to a live stage, sharing live incursions locally in their native Bay Area with the likes of Abysmal Lord, Funeral Chant, Abhorrency, and Dispirit, while more live rituals are already scheduled for spring 2025 with the likes of Primitive Warfare and Kontusion, demonstrating the band’s inherent penchant for to perpetrating a new standard of audial violence not only in the recording studio, but also on stage.