Search - Astarte :: Sirens

Douglas Hernandez | 09/04/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"On Astarte's debut album "Dark doomed years", they succeeded in creating a record full of primal darkness. They were even dubbed as a female version of Darkthrone. On "Sirens" we find them playing a more abstruse and polished style of black metal. I would compare their current direction with the one of Dimmu Borgir, the difference being that the songs here do not contain unnecessary complicated arrangements for the sake of showing off. Instead, the compositions hit you directly without totally being straightforward. Nice progress, and though I prefer the cold spirituality of their debut this release offers enough dynamics and complexity to make it a challenging and memorable listen."

Black metal isn't just from Scandinavia

herohammer | New Mexico, U.S.A. | 08/05/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Female fronted black or death metal bands are quite rare, and often it doesn't really matter what gender the vocalist of an extreme metal band is given that some female vocalists can growl like the cookie monster and there is always Dani Filth who can sing... eeer screech or whatever he does, higher than most female vocalists can...



This is my first Astarte album and I enjoy it. It incorporates some interesting pagan themes unusuall for a non-scandinavian band. This album is great for those tired of listening to the word "OOOOOOOODDDDDDDHHHHHHIIIIIINNNN!!!!" to much...Given that the band is from Greece, one would think that these mythological referances would be quite familiar like their Norse contemporaries. This is not correct however as Astarte make frequent references to comparatively obscure elements of their region's ancient myths, rather like Cradle of Filth do on occasion. Musically there is some repition of themes such as in the tracks Black Mighty Gods and Lloth(which is bassicaly an acoustic interlude version of Black Mighty Gods) The acoustic and keybourd parts are well done, if not highly integrated into the metal parts of the album. In this way the cd reminds of Burzum's pre-filosofem works in that black metal tracks are divided by softer interlude tracks that sound just as good as their metal counterparts. The guitar work, drumming, and bass are all up to par for a black metal band. The mix is quite good and the production, while clear does not soften the impact of the album significantly. The vocals remind me of Arch Enemy's vocalist, who is listed as an influence in the cd booklet. The vocals are brutal in an almost death metal-esque way but retain a black metal feel almost all of the time through the lyrics and the riffage. One rather humorous thing to note about the band is that the drums are played by a real person on this album, not a drum machine(which the band uses live, or so I have heard), a real person who never appears in any photo in the liner notes because the drummer is a guy and the band wants to be an all girl band, presumably to sell off of the novelty factor. This seems rather pretentious to me, but the music is good and doesn't referance this fact so I don't care."

Better-than-average black metal

L Salisbury | Maryland United States | 04/02/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Once you get past the disorganized drumming (typical of black metal) you get creative & mellodic all girl metal from Greece! Imagine a riot-grrl version of Borgnagar, early Sirenia and (very) early Moonspell. Here's hoping for a second CD from these lovely ladies!"