Sideshow Symphonies by Arcturus (2005)

Haha, controversity! That's what I love 'bout stuff. And there's some 'round this album. Don't know who Arcturus is? Let me get you a bit in the story, Arcturus is an Avant-Garde metal band (According to wikipedia... and guess what? That's right!) from Norway. I, myself, I like to call them Back Rock (LOL) or more accurate: Clean Black Metal, 'cause it combines the elements of classic black metal, like the song structure, and the lack of "musicality and melody" and combines them with keyboard melodies and clean vocals. They have realeased four albums before breaking up, only three of them, featuring the original singer and frontman: Kristoffer Rygg, way better known as Garm, while the last album features the all melodic viking angel... warrior... and whatever word they use to describe him, I.C.S. Vortex, wich, like in any band that changes singer (I'm ponting at YOU, Nightwish fans especially) wasn't recived so well, and got people to like only after acting in some other bands... We are talking today 'bout the album where the singer's Vortex.

So, the first song, Hibernation Sickness Complete about five minutes long (5:02, to be more precise) well THAT's a way to start an album, ever thought that no album starts off with an awsome song? This one does! It's a really harmonic... space-ish... piece of notes, also, the end of the song features black metal vocals, wich is another plus an Arcturus song! It isn't your daily super heavy tremolo picked and blastbeated song it's so damn yearpleasing, now 'bout the cons: well in some versions of the album you hear two or three beeps at the beggining. You might be lucky enough not to, I don't know. The lyrics... it's pretty hard to call, most Arcturus lyrics are... Let's start with the title: Hibernation Sickness Complete: pretty self explenatory, I do understand that's at least related to the more melodic part of the song, starting with "Moon set... on full scale regret... [...] But a bleak recolection... of something undone...", the lyrics might not be the best part of the song, but their yearpleasing.

Moving on to the next song, Shipwrecked Frontier Pioneer, darn long one (8:32), but always seems it ends fast. Now if the first song was good, this is definetly an incredibly fitting continuation. The main singing pattern is pure viking and really powerful. The lyrics are SciFi-ish and depending on how you like, well... you like it or not. Also at about three minutes and a half starts a pretty nice little instrumental part, quickly transformed into a riff as Vortex comes in singing.

The third song, Deamon Painter, 5:33... Well, I guess, the track number three is pretty good to start lowering the song quality, this one isn't neither powerful nor melodic, it's kind of a mixture between them, and the singing pattern seems the same the whole song long. The lyrics are pretty decent, I guess... For some reason the band members really promote this song, they added it to the live track list and it's also featured on Simen's MySpace (Simen = I.C.S. Vortex). So...yeah, that's 'bout it...

Let's bring forth the fourth song, wich is Nocturnal Vision Revisited, 5:16 long. It has a slow but pretty intresting intro (nearly forgot, after that it becomes a heavy guitar riff), really yearpleasing. But the best part of the song are the lyrics wich are so great, the whole song has this dark feeling about it, to me the lyrics seems like are about how curiosity can or will kill us, and they also have this deranged mind feeling about it, really, really cool dark song with some fitting heavy parts also. A hard-to-get-bored-of song.

Going on, Evacuation Code Deciphered - 6:16. Like it's predecessor - AWSOME lyrics, really got to say, this gamer-ish insane stuff: it's mind-blowing. Also this song is full of energy, and lads, later on in the song there's also a really good instrumental part, with a modern sound, followed by the end of the woooorld (of the song actually).

Moonshine Delirium! 7:10, the second longest song on the album (after "Shipwrecked Frontier Pioneer", the second one). This one is the most SciFi-ish song of the album, especially the lyrics, the intro singing pattern is also pretty darn dark. At around the second minute there's a quite long and very, very well written instrumental, be sure to check it (like you can miss it, anyway, duh... it is about two minute long). The rest of the song has some pretty nice singing patterns, not the best, but it won't bore you. The second instrumental comes at about four minutes and half, and it's not lower in quality than the first, it also has a heavier part and a solo, and it's also the end of the song.

White Noise Monster 3:55. We come back to a singing pattern familiar with the one in Shipwrecked Frontier Pioneer, meaning that it's viking and powerful, it's pretty hard to call, it might be an anti religious song lyric-regarding... I don't know. But it's really cool and yearpleasing, a powerful song. It also ends with a nice short instrumental.

Number 8, Reflections - 3:40... It's the shortest song of the album, and it's an instrumental. It's a pretty dark one, but I love it, and it's really unique, because Vortex actually sings in it later on. And how is it still an instrumental? Well Vortex uses his unique-to-metal vocal talents, with an opera-ish... one-man-choir-ish vocals, wich are incredible, and makes the song darker and darker.

The last song, Hufsa (The Groke) 5:07, it's a dark melodic song, talk about perfect ways to end an album. Around two minutes, it has a pretty nice solo, and more and more darkness... The lyrics are in Norwegian, but grats to the wonders of today's science, was able to translate it, it depicts a dark scene, everything's dark 'bout this song. It also ends with a nice solo.

A pretty long and worth to buy album, oh, by the way, track 8, Reflections, might also feature those beeps. Here's some samples:

Hibernation Sickness Complete: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhhfJHlOoM4

Shipwrecked Fronties Pioneer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bleAGvf4BI

Nocturnal Vision Revisited: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ag_f631i-Y