adg211288 I must say first of all that Sirens is one of the more accessible black metal albums I’ve come across, mainly because of its top notch production, where many black metal bands insist on having a raw, under produced sound. As such this album may not be of an appeal to black metal’s devotees, but I have to say, they’d be really missing out if they did turn their noses up at this.

The vocals on Sirens are of course going to have a slightly different sound to most black metal because Astarte is an all female band (excluding session drummer Ivar). The vocals are also different from the band’s previous releases as bassist/guitarist Tristessa is now filling the vocalist role as well as playing her instruments. Her growl has the strength required to lift an album to great heights, and on Sirens, Tristessa has succeeded. In fact she puts all three of the album guest vocalists (Shagrath - Dimmu Borgir, Sakis - Rotting Christ, and Nicolas Maiis - Lloth/S.I.C. Team) to shame with her brutally powerful voice, which she occasionally varies into a softly spoken clean vocal, which while not actually singing, adds an extra depth to the songs she uses it on.

Speaking of the songs, the writing skill displayed is extremely good, with little or no faults in each of these ten songs. One may question Tristessa’s decision to include the same lead melody in several of the songs (albeit with some variation), but Sirens is an album where the music is just so damn good that it doesn’t matter. Song highlights are Dark Infected Circles (Outbreak), Black Mighty Gods, Bitterness of Mortality (Mecoman), Oceanus Procellarum (Liquid Tomb) and The Ring (Of Sorrow). Tristessa wrote Sirens entirely on her own, and in mind proves herself to be an extraordinary talent, one that is devilishly underrated.

The album features three vocal duets as mentioned above. By having such well known names as Shagrath and Sakis on their album, Astarte could easily get accused on trying to use the reputation of others to get themselves noticed more, but I can assure you, this is not the case. The collaborations have been done for the music’s gain, not a financial gain. Each duet works in its own way, and each manages to sound distinct.

It's not quite their best album to date, I still consider their previous effort to this one, 2002's Quod Superius Sicut Inferius to be the group's masterpiece, but this is definitely up there with it in a nice No. 02 position.

(Review originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)