SIREN OF THE WOODS

Therion's second single gathers together edited versions of two tracks from their excellent "Theli" album plus an otherwise hard to find non-album track.

The title track originally ran to some 10 minutes on "Theli"; here with admirable disregard for the demands of commercial radio, the single version is still over 8 minutes long. The song is one of the absolute highlights of "Theli", with majestic orchestration, delightful piano and female operatic vocals. It is not immediately apparent where the two minutes have been removed from, as this version still stands as a magnificent opus in itself. The piece has the feel of a "Kashmir" or "November rain", but the lack of global recognition of the band at the time and the song's length, inevitably led to it being all but ignored for radio play. As with the album version, my only gripe is with the fading of the track.

"Cults Of The Shadow" is billed as being an edited version, but the eagle eyed will notice this version is only a few seconds shorter than the album track. Christofer Johnsson reports that the song was indeed edited down, but he then decided against the abbreviation and added a different mix of the removed part back into the track. As such, this sounds pretty much identical to the fine track on the "Theli" album.

The final track is "Babylon" a song written by bassist Lars Rosenberg. He had originally presented the track to his previous band Entombed, but he was ejected from that band before they could record it. Keen to ensure they did not use it in his absence, he persuaded Johnsson to allow a Therion version to be made. The song leans back towards the style of the "Lepaca Kliffoth" album, with more than a nod to bands such as Black Sabbath. There are no operatic or even female vocals here, just the distinctive voice of drummer Piotr Wawrzeniuk. It is not a bad song, but rather out of place in the context of its concurrent album.

In all, a single of interest mainly for the non-album track it contains, but that track is not by any means representative of where Therion were at the time.