SIRIUS B

Part one of Therion's two-piece epic, "Sirius B" is an odd example of pure metal joy mixed with endless metal cheese, rife with "artistic" pretense making it an explosive misfire, but not without redeeming qualities.

"Sirius B" uses cunchy, melodic guitar-led metal riffing throughout, usually with terrific intensity and power from its rhythm section. Big, powerful, and exciting, at its best "Sirius" really rocks. The songwriting itself isn't especially compelling though, and the group's lauded technical skill falls very short of the raves. The songs are somewhat varied, but ultimately revolve around the previously mentioned riffing; there are few solos, few interesting time changes or experimental moments, and not much to make an impact. As a whole, the project feels like its playing it safe, and while generally sounding pretty good, this banality takes away from the end result.

The biggest problem is, of course, its gimmicky symphonic and opera additions, which seem novel at first but quickly out last their welcome. The choir does almost all fo the lead-singing (if one can call it that), and the purity (or sterility, you judge) of their voices sounds very silly here. The inclusion of the ochestra is not pulled of well either; the compositions give the instruments few chances to do what they do well-- they just sort of chug along with the riffing.

The end result is something I wanted to be very cool, but will ultimately become little more than background music for Dungeons and Dragons.

Songwriting: 3 Instrumental Performances: 3 Lyrics/Vocals: 2 Style/Emotion/Replay: 2