Sirenia - Perils Of The Deep Blue 2013

Norwegian cum Spaniard Symphonic Gothic act is what Sirenia stands for. Historically, the band was born as a rival project of ejected Morten Veland from another gothic band, Tristania. Five albums they are in, with the release like The 13th Floor impressed me a lot. In this new 2013 album, Perils of the Deep Blue, Sirenia comes with deeper Symphonic metal and their gothic elements are still pure as blue ocean. A good standing position, to not followed other gothic band turns heavy or progressive trend lately.

The sign of serious symphonic stuff can be derived from their 3 minutes long instrumental intro Ducere Me in Lucem that lengthy in atmospheric chanting and howling. Then Seven Widows Weep is bombastic first opener, full scale in choirs and buzzing guitar distortion. As in many death metal wannabe, the first vocal we met is Morten Veland himself in harsh growling voice. The female singer is by Ailyn Garcia, not in the same room of operatic voices ala Tarja, but Ailyn sing in higher clean voice territory. The effect of her voice is good to fit into mermaids and ocean blue theme, kind of atmosphere and new age feel. She again sing perfectly in My Destiny Coming to Pass, a gothic metal best formula of having bombastic music but the singing is slow and charming. Alas, Ditt Endelikt is something awkward with a vocal do less justice to its music, which is a nice one. Luckily that is the only 'clean male voices' track on the album, we back on the track of symphonic attack in Cold Caress. For a notice, Perils Of The Deep Blue come with little to none guitar solos, Morten put more energy to invent catchy keyboard arrangements, one of the good sample is in Decadence. More serious composition comes in Stille Kom Døden, where Ailyn's sing in slow motion mode for over 12 minutes long. The escalation of mourning come to climax in The Funeral March. Profound Scars is angry and fast track, now with a bit of guitar works along with a popular flute voices. The other lengthy guitar solos only found in the later track, A Blizzard Is Coming.

Surely a theatrical synthesizer cover up can never replaced a guitar solo. Listening to over seventy minutes of choirs and orchestration, as good as it is, hardly can avoid to fall into boredom borderline. So, Sirenia need to hire additional shredder to lighten up situation, I beg. The other thing, the popular yin yang attack, female vs (death metal) male voices is not as tight as in other similar band. I feel Morten Veland's harsh vocal is not the best part I enjoy. Ailyn's innocence voice is enough, so left her alone is also my pledge. As for the bombastic symphonic part, this is where Sirenia able to capture attention in almost every song's opening. When Morten's ex-friends in the Tristan camp trying to further away from their Symphonic root, he leads friends in Siren camp to venture further in this overpower Symphonic attack. Perils Of The Deep Blue is best energy drink for your sleepy summer days.

Metal Harem class: ******* seven stars out of ten

Sirenia — Perils Of The Deep Blue 2013
Buy it Here at Amazon

1. Ducere Me in Lucem
2. Seven Widows Weep
3. My Destiny Coming to Pass
4. Ditt Endelikt
5. Cold Caress
6. Darkling
7. Decadence
8. Stille Kom Døden
9. The Funeral March
10. Profound Scars
11. A Blizzard is Storming
Bonustracks
12. Chains
13. Blue Colleen

Morten Veland — Vocals (harsh, clean), Guitars, Bass, Drums, Keyboards, Programming
Jonathan A. Perez — Drums
Pilar "Ailyn" Giménez García — Vocals
Jan Erik Soltvedt — Guitars

Produced- Morten Veland
Mastering and Mixing- Endre Kirkesola
Cover Artwork- Anne Stokes
Label: Nuclear Blast Records

Sirenia Perils of the Deep Blue album review