THELI

This is really the album that introduced Therion to a much larger audience. The band had the opportunity to record songs they wrote many years before (for the most part) but never went able to (mainly because of budget problems). The music mixes classic heavy metal with opera singing, and "Theli" is probably the album that started the symphonic metal genre. Highly recommended.

"Preludium", "Interludium", "Opus Eclipse" and "Grand Finale / Postludium" are the instrumental songs on this album - great melodic pieces. "To Mega Therion" starts with the choir and then Christofer Johnsson's hardcore voice - the music is operatic with a lot of keyboards. "Cults Of The Shadow" features vocal performances by Piotr Wawrzeniuk (who plays drums - but what a voice!) and guest Dan Swano (a great idea by the way to ask the man to do some vocals here - his clean voice perfectly fits) - very operatic song again, catchy melody, almost joyful. "In The Desert Of Set" and "Nightside Of Eden" continue in the same style, but the melody is much darker. "Invocation Of Naamah" is the raw track on the album - very heavy power/speed metal. About "The Siren Of The Woods", I don't know what to say... except that it's one in my top 10 favorites of all time. The melody is beautiful, the vocals are very emotional - makes me think that this song would perfectly fit the Beren & Luthien story if that part from the Silmarillion had to be translated into music.

Rating: 91/100