DIRGE

Mr.Sirius is one of the obscure japanese bands who was formed in mid '80s with only 2 albums released in their short career. The most succesful and regarded as their best is the second offer named Dirge from 1990. The music is a combination of symphonic passages with a clear classical direction and a canterbury feel added in the mix. Well the result is pretty great I might say. Also in some parts are some pastoral elements present with a soft and mellow atmosphere. Hiroko Nagai the female vocalist has a pleasent voice that goes very well in this context, sometimes the vocal arrangements are very similar with Broadway singers or musical ones as the instrumental section aswell, like on Love Incomplete. Anyway the longest tune of the album The Nile For A While clocking around 21 minutes, is awesome, here the band gather all the great ideas they had so far and the result is pretty great and well performed. The passages are very well presented something between Camel , The Enid with canterbury feel. Lots of synth , combined with pastoral flute parts gives a very special atmophere with vocal parts both in english and japanese by Hiroko Nagai. So, all in all more then pleasent album to my ears, the cover art is quite awesome and goes hand in hand with the music. 4 stars for this little japanese treasure.