UMUR "Sitra Ahra" is the 13th full-length studio album by Swedish symphonic metal act Therion. The album was released in September 2010 by Nuclear Blast Records.

The music on the album is vocal dominated symphonic metal. The backbone of the music is mid- to slow paced heavy metal but it´s the operatic and semi-operatic female and male vocals that completely dominate the music. The songs are epic and almost cinematic at times. Sometimes I´m reminded of a grand musical ( broadway) production. The images are the only thing missing. I´m well entertained throughout the playing time of the album as I´m treated to well thought out compositions, excellent musicianship and a professional production. As far as the "metal" part of the album goes, I miss a bit of bite and recognisable riffs, but the intriguing melody lines and vocal performances make up for some of that.

I haven´t listened to much Therion since "Theli (1996)", but I understand they´ve played this style of vocal dominated symphonic metal pretty much since then. With that in mind I can´t put "Sitra Ahra" into a context discography wise, but viewed upon on its own merits this is a really good album to my ears. A 3.5 star rating is fully deserved.

bonnek The first half of the 90's saw the rise of doom-death. A style of slow-paced doom metal with gruff vocals that combined the power chords of Black Sabbath, the slow dirge and nihilism of the industrial new wave band Swans and the zombie type of vocals that you used to scare your little sister with.

Anathema, My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost are best known but also Sweden (of course) had its exponents, such as Therion, be it without entirely fulfilling their promise yet on this album. It is decent, but it is the sound of a death metal band that realized they weren't heavy nor skilled enough to hold their ground in this normally very technical scene. So they compensated their disadvantage by experimenting, by finding creative solutions and by trying out new things on the unsuspecting audiences. An approach that often leads to great things.

This transitional album is mostly straightforward 'doom death & roll' with occasional experiments with choirs and violins. Their next album would reveal all the potential of this fertile marriage. Lepaca Kliffoth will probably only appeal to you if you want to seek out where Therion came from and if you can stomach the gruff vocals. I’ve found myself quite liking it, but never enough to motivate me to explore the Therion history any further back then this one.

bonnek Before they started a blooming business in cloning themselves, Therion made quite an interesting appearance on the extensive 90's metal scene. With Theli, Therion reached the end of their progression from a Celtic Frost replica into a highly influential blend of Celtic Frost's pioneering theatrical tendencies with an equal amount of Metallica thrash metal and Sisters of Mercy gothic rock.

Therion will probably not charm you much if you expect great musicianship, both the riffing and the song writing is fairly straightforward. But it is applied to maximum effect: they don’t repeat too much here, change tempo and melodies frequently enough and had plenty of ideas to keep your attention to the proceedings. Both the inspiration and the passion for what they were doing ran high in those days. The element that could make them appealing to progressive rock audiences is the addition of Beethoven-era classical influences and symphonic choruses. Celtic Frost pioneered this in metal but Therion apply it very effectively.

As happened with every remarkable heavy metal album from the 90's, also this one sprouted a multitude of look-alikes that would ape the style and clutter the metal scene for years to come. Nightwish, Within Temptation, After Forever and Therion themselves would turn this exciting approach into a commercially successful but artistically deficient self-parody. Before it got so far, Therion made this essential piece of music.

bonnek Therion had one more great work in them before they turned into a metal muzak producing unit, While Theli marked the end of their creative progression, Vovin is a solid confirmation of their quality standards. Even though the music is very straightforward, the huge symphonic arrangements, operatic voices and pleasant melodies could easily win over many prog-heads.

While every song is most pleasant, the continuous slow place and generic approach bogs down the effect somewhat. The Wild Hunt is the only up-tempo track that stirs things up a bit. Another weakness is that it is really too sweet and smooth all the way through. It's sure done tastefully, neither kitschy nor excessive (which is quite an achievement in this style), but sometimes I'd really like to kick their butt hoping they would put a bit more adventure in their work.

Therion used to be a unique and ground-breaking metal act in the 90's. Vovin easily proves that. But I used to be more overwhelmed by it at the time it came out. Since then it hasn't survived repeated critical listens all that well, I only play it occasionally now.

bonnek I had ignored this album as I found Therion were gradually losing their originality and creativity. I had really enjoyed Theli and Vovin but a number of reasons had made me do big detours around anything called Therion from 1999 onwards: the repetitive approach of Vovin, the stop-gap called The Crowning of Atlantis and the assembly line products Lemuria/Sirius B.

As I had expected, there's nothing on offer that we haven't heard on other Therion albums, but the crunchy guitar work from new axe man Kristian Niemann is good improvement. His galloping NWOBHM riffs kick Therion out of its imminent lethargic state. In fact, due to its energy boost, this album sounds more like a follow up for Theli then Vovin did. The songs have a lot more metal punch in them and there's more variation.

Next to the guitarist, also the choir and orchestra are a real treat and generally, Therion sound like a band having lots of fun at what they are doing again. The opener Seven Secrets is the best song on the album and serves as an excellent example: crisp guitars, big choir arrangements and good melodies. Eternal Return goes for a more gentle approach, a bit musical-alike at times but with occasional up-tempo parts that seem to come straight out of Iron Maiden and Rainbow albums.

Enter Vril-Ya is a classic hard rock stomp. As usual with Therion, they know how to make the most out of a simple idea. The choir is really excellent here, dark and menacing. In fact, as the closing track of the album proves, it all seems to come right out of the Carmina Burana: songs about drinking, lust, gluttony and similar types of medieval fun.

The quality goes a bit up and down. Some songs like Ships of Luna and The Invincible rely too heavily on the effect made by the overwhelming arrangements and big choirs , probably in order to hide that the songwriting isn’t all that impressive really. Still, there are good moments, like Deggial that saves itself from anonymity by a good tempo change at the end.

The short Lord of Flies is a little energetic piece and one of the highpoints. With Flesh of the Gods they put in a stab of shameless hairmetal that is simply irresistible. The fun they had with this one is no less than contagious. Via Nocturna is a typical Therion track that I've simply heard too much by now. They handled the Orff cover O Fortuna with their usual good judgement, not too bombastic (a relative thing), with just some celestial rock drums accompanying the choir and orchestra. Works for me.

From this album onwards things declined rapidly for Therion. The following albums might still appeal to die-hard fans or to people not familiar with Therion, but for anyone else they’re unnecessary. The conclusion stands that Therion stopped evolving after Vovin, but with Deggial they at least added a nice selection of songs to their canon. Not their best but a good album nevertheless and not a bad start for Therion newbies.