Sirenian Shores

Sirenian Shores is Morten Veland new offrande to his loyal fans. This is indeed Morten himself who composed and arranged all the stuff on this MCD, except for the songs First We Take Manhattan which is a cover song of Leonard Cohen. This is also Morten himself who played all the instrument on this MCD, except for violins played by Anne Verdot and the vocals duties which are being shared by Morten for all the growls, Kristian Gundersen for the clean male vocals, Henriette Bordvik for the songs Sirenian Shores and the remix of Save Me From Myself, while they kept Fabienne Gondamin's vocals for the acoustic version of Meridian. On the other hand, a new female vocalist make an appearance for the Leonard Cohen’s cover song First We Take Manhattan. If we consider that the song Sirenian Shores is a leftover from An Elixir For Existence recording sessions, then we might wonder if the rumours about the departure of female vocalist Henriette Bordvik aren’t true after all. Sirenian Shores is probably a leftover from An Elixir For Existence recording sessions. It’s a typical song in the vein of those featured on Sirenia’s sophomore album and could easily have been included on the album since this one is better than some featured on the full length. The song is a mixture of gothic metal and rock with classical influences, as well as black and death metal elements, dressed with atmospheric keyboards and spiced with melancholic violins. The vocal styles consist of the use of growls, screams, female vocals, clean male vocals, choirs, whispers and samples. The song is probably a bit more atmospheric than the average Sirenia song. The remix of Save Me From Myself taken from An Elixir Of Existence is one of those fillers bands like to include on MCD to fill them out. It doesn’t really bring anything, but it’s always cool to hear a different remix, although I didn’t hear a real difference between the two versions. The acoustic version of Meridian taken from At Sixes And Seven is of a better interest. The song remains the same but the great vocals of Fabienne Gondamin are largely enhanced on this version, as well as the violin parts and the choirs. Now that the second album has been out for half a year, I really wished Morten had kept on working with the french singer. That’s my opinion. First We Take Manhattan is a cover song. The first ever done by Morten. Tristania had indeed never recorded a cover song while Morten was in the band. The choice is weird, but the result is very interesting and enjoyable, although I prefer when they cover metal bands because I know how the original sounds like. But after all, the choice of the cover belongs to the one who does it, not to the one who listens to it. The good thing is you won’t find this cover on a Nuclear Blast compilation of a tribute to some kind of metal legends. The interesting thing about this song is that it isn’t Henriette Bordvik who supplies the female vocals, but Emmanuelle Zordan who was doing the choirs on An Elixir Of Existence. Her 30 second guest vocals appearance isn’t really outstanding, more of an average female vocalist and I hope that if Morten parted ways with Henriette Bordvik, he won’t be choosing Emmanuelle Zordan as the new permanent female vocalist. I have also noticed there’s no grunt or growls of any sort on this song. Obire Mortem is a short instrumental track that remains an... instrumental track supposed to close the MCD since the band already used one of those on their latest album they had no choice but to keep this one for this release. All in all, this is nothing more than a regular MCD with the traditional new song, the traditional cover song, and the traditional remixes or alternative versions of previous materials. For fans only. And I am among them.