Sicwt_2014

Brazilian band SIRIUN was formed in 2014, and is first and foremost the creative vehicle of composer and guitarist Alexandre Castellan, used as a vehicle to develop and perform his ideas and creations. Joined by drummer Kevin Talley and bassist Hugo Machado the band was assembled in 2014, and towards the end of the year they released their debut album “In Chaos We Trust”.

Metal is the name of the game for Siriun, and a fairly intense and quirky variety of it to boot. There’s a fair amount of aggression, powered by the powerful vocals of Castellan. Primarily in the form of raspy growls, but with evil sounding shrieks and a select few occasions of regular melodic lead vocals applied as well. Still, in the vocals department the growls dominate, to the extent that this is a vocal style you need to enjoy to be able to enjoy the material at hand.

Castellan has recruited a more than able drummer, one who is just as much at ease delivering regular paced patterns as intense hammering ones that should beat most techno songs in the BPM department, adding a few subtle details here and there as all highly skilled drummers tends to do. The bass is a solid support, and Castellan delivers a fair amount of variety in the guitar department as expected, at ease with powerful riff constructions, pounding loud riffs, intense riff barrages and a great variety of guitar soloing. There’s also room for acoustic interludes, effects laden sickly textures, wah wah soloing over extreme metal riff foundations and quirky, unusual riff patterns weaving, sliding and hammering their way through the relatively short and mainly eventful, quirky compositions on this CD.

Variety is a key issue, as the compositions tends to move between a minimum of two styles, thrash and extreme metal, with Castellan gleefully adding a few unexpected details here and some unconventional developments there. Siriun is a self-described thrash/progressive/death metal band, and it’s easy to understand where that description is coming from once you’ve given this album a run.

Sophisticated metal with a thrash and extreme metal foundation is what we’re served here, with aggressive vocal growls and playful, varied guitar expressions as key features and an approach that for many would make the use of the description progressive warranted by quite a few listeners I’d imagine. As such productions goes this is a quality one, easily recommended to those who find such constellations to be generally intriguing.

My rating: 80/100