Sirenia, Arcane astral aeons

The previous Dim days of dolor album sparked my then dwindling concern for Sirenia, and not only due to Emmanuelle’s deep, rich and pleasant voice. The band showed some promise in attempting to correct other things that were previously wrong, such as the ex-machina choirs and grunts and the coldness and general un-excitement the music had to offer. To tell the truth, I was disappointed in the way Ailyn was unceremoniously kicked out of the band and although I never cared for her voice, she seemed like a kind person that took all the (apparently undeserved) shit thrown at her with more grace and patience than most would’ve mustered. But another truth is that band drama aside, Emmanuelle’s arrival was good for them musically and gave me naive hopes they would not only keep the higher standards, but raise them even more. And boy was I wrong!

No matter how glad I am to hear a more fitting voice after the heavy instrumental, unfortunately In Styx Embrace is just generic grunts, drums, choirs and violins. It doesn’t sound bad, but it lacks identity, I feel like I’ve heard it ten thousand times before. Maybe it can work for the middle of the album, but as an opening track it doesn’t exactly generate any interest and curiosity for what’s next in store. 

Oh, Sirenia, it’s to no avail to get a voice like Emma if you’re going to make her sing Into the night, which is the same poppy crap Ailyn used to perform. And no, adding an orchestra and male choirs and French whispering doesn’t make it any more complex and less poppy, it just draws attention to how desperate you are to cover the crap and pretend you’re still an innovative composer. 

Love like cyanide sounds like a musical deja vu. The first time I listened to this I checked if the player wasn’t stuck in repeat mode. And it’s not a hyperbole, I actually did that, 30 seconds into the song I thought to myself “didn’t I just listen to that?”, looked at the title, went back to the previous one and established that indeed, these are two separate songs. Or at least try to pass for it. There are some promising sparks here and there, like the dissonant bridge around 2:00, the World of glass-like grunts and the creepy-sounding strings but they are quickly drowned by the repetitiveness and cheesiness of the choir and honestly that makes it even more frustrating than being bad from start to finish. 

In Desire I cannot believe that they are using the same melodic line for the third freaking time in only four entries. I refuse to believe it, my ears are just deceiving me. And no, just because Emmanuelle is French, it doesn’t mean she has to sing old French music and it doesn’t make you a visionary to combine it with heavy guitars and growling. It’s not visionary to merely use them, it’s how you make them sound good together. And this is where Sirenia once again fails, because there’s a reason the Sirenia syndrome is named after them.

Asphyxia: I haven’t said this enough times, if you don’t have ideas for a new album, you don’t have to put one out. Better bands have waited for more than two years between records and it was all right, no fans rioted at their door or anything. I simply don’t understand how can a songwriter try to hard to include less conventional tidbits in every melody (it’s war recordings in this one) and at the same time fail so miserably at not making all his tracks sound like they’ve been made on the assembly line. For someone who wants to be unique so badly, he sure has issues with the basics of originality. 

At least Queen of lies is fun and catchy. I’m pretty sure the serious and self-important Morten would cringe at the idea of his music being called fun, but heh, there’s worse things to be. Like uninspired and insipid. And disjointed. Which of course this song is because by now it seems to be in his blood to start something and forget where he was going with it. He’s quick to kill the fun with his darkness and he’s even quicker to kill all the excitement he was able to create with the ominous and dramatic bridge by returning to the cheesy catchy chorus. Ladies and gentlemen, Sirenia. 

I kind of liked Nos heures sombres, even though it sounded very much like an older Sirenia or Tristania chorus. Until, in my regular obsessive manner, I started thinking what it reminds me of and realised it’s not only a Tristania track, it’s one of the first (and better) non-Morten Tristania ones, Patriot Games. And it sounds ten times more boring and uninteresting than the original. If you’re go through the embarrassment of stealing from your old band, at least do it with style!

By the time I got to The Voyage I was so out of it that Hansi Kursch himself could’ve come down and start singing in all his might and glory and it still would’ve been hard to rekindle my interest. Which is too bad because this is actually one of the stronger parts of the album, if anything here other than Morten’s ego and stubbornness can be called “strong”. Or my critic spirit has just been defeated and decided to crawl up in a hole, take your pick. 

Aerodyne had a brief moment that made me lift my head and listen with enthusiasm, which was Morten’s low minimalistic voice that will probably never stop giving me the chills. The moment was promptly drowned in a corny stale chorus, of course, and with it also drowned any hope I had of this dude ever being good again. 

The twilight hour brings back the general apathy, but at least it has a consistent serious mood from start to finish and doesn’t jump erratically from light-hearted choruses to dramatic vocals. I guess that’s progress, but I return to what I was saying about In Styx Embrace: when distributing tracks throughout the album, placing all the good (better) ones at the end doesn’t make for a stronger finish. There’s a reason the fillers are placed towards the middle in most releases, the strong beginning gets the listeners excited about what’s to come and the strong ending leaves them with a good impression. If by the time they get to the good impression they’re so impassive they just want to get it over with, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing left to save. 

Glowing embers may try to channel the band’s inner soundtracky Nightwish, but I quite like it. I suppose my expectations have been severely lowered by what I heard before (maybe that was their strategy and I didn’t understand it), but it’s almost well rounded and gets me to pay attention and care about what is going on. You know, almost. The guitar intro is beautiful, there’s a bit of soul put into it and not even the chorus is that bad. But it’s late now, waaay to late. 

The bottom line is that Morten doesn’t allow this band to be something fun and light because I guess it’s beneath his dignity to be anything less than heavy and epic. But at the same time he lacks the inspiration and focus to actually stick with the heavy and epic and take it to Beyond the veil levels of quality. And the result is something that doesn’t appeal to either sides of the spectrum and simply feels like a disjointed and convoluted mess of a release. It also doesn’t help that I know all these “behind the scenes” things about what a crappy person he is (not only to band mates, but to other bands and sometimes even the fans) and I feel all his arrogance and dismissiveness ooze into the music. I think this was the last chance given to this band, if after nine albums they can only show mild signs of promise in the seventh and eighth and then return to the same old same old in the last one, then I guess it’s become safe to say that’s all they have to offer. It saddens me because I think I mentioned many many times that Beyond the veil and Widow’s weeds are two of my all-time favourite albums, but that creative genius is long gone and now it’s time for me to move on.