Can I explain Saetia? No. Can I tell you what they sound like or anything pertinent to making a decision on whether you should buy this CD? No. So I'll make this short and sweet.
Attempt at describing Saetia's sound: Melodic and violent, chaotic and collected. Moving from one to the other quite easily, often times in the same song. Heavy on the screams, the vocals sound like, gasp, there is some actual meaning to what is being said. They are loaded with emotion. Emotion = emo right? Could be, I dunno, don't really care, cause Saetia sounds pretty damn good. One of those bands that can't be pigeon holed.
Attempt at describing Saetia's history: I've got no clue. All I know is that it says in the back of the booklet that they were a band from Feb 1997-Oct 1999. Again, according to the back of the booklet, they released one LP, a 7", and a demo cassette, as well as a random comp song. Far too little, that's how much material Aerosmith should have released. A band this good should have stayed together and released more, but what can you do?
The CD itself: Contains 22 songs total, 17 of which are listed. What the last five are, I've got no idea. But it's five more songs, and that's not something to complain about at all. Recording quality may not be the best ever, but the music more than makes up for it. 22 songs for like 12 bucks? Sounds like a deal to me. Level Plane put out this release, a great label that not many people know of.
*I get scene points for doing this review and liking this band, but since I loathe the notion of any tribulization of any scene or music in general, you can have them. You're welcome.