December???
I can't wait anymore!!!!!!!

December 2010 is only a MS date placeholder until the band announces the real release date.

Oh, and I can't wait either!
Hopefully a tour will follow the release.

I hope their will go back to the music as good as Vovin & Theli

I don't really see Therion as a group who will rely on their past successes to move forward, as such...they are constantly changing and evolving and getting more intricate and adventurous, and let's be honest, they haven't made anything that sounds like Theli since, well, Theli. Personally I quite liked Gothic Kabbalah (although I haven't listened to it as much as their earlier stuff), I'll just be intrigued to see what they come up with, and I do hope that it's different to anything they've done before. That's the great thing about bands like Therion, the unpredictability factor - you just have to keep an open mind. Can't wait!

Written by CyberSymphony on 30.03.2010 at 12:09

I hope their will go back to the music as good as Vovin & Theli

I hope that too! Masterpieces.

Vovin, Theli, Lepaca Kliffoth... Ye, I hope that too. Too many bands change from 'excellent' to 'we-wanted-to-test-this-new-thing' which in many cases sounds like crap.

Holy hell can't wait... i wish they would come back to america....

The can do what ever they want just don't go on with Gothic kabbalah style! cuz it was a big letdown for me.

I agree. Gothic Kabbalah was a decent album (Well it's Therion we are talking about!) but certainly not their best. I hope there will be more symphonic elements and opera choirs like on Secret Of The Runes or Deggial mixed with a strong metal section and of course the mystical feeling of Therion's music !

Less bullshit and more heavy fucking riffing like Lemuria and Sirius B. The more crap you add the more you lose.

Allreade have the album its pretty awesome

i think that it can be a masterpiece

Have some good songs, the guitar solos are weaker, and most important it's much boring than previous release. Therion has new line-up and it's very good for new start, but this release is not perfect or brilliant. Need much work for that.

Heard it and just as piss [poor as their last couple of albums.

I heard it for once and i found it brilliant and more (Therional ) than the let down Gothic Kabbalah , Chris wrote almost the entire album and snowy took the rest , for me nothing goes wrong except some Lizzy moments here and there and the band promo. pics look stupid like u watch Alice on wonder land or some thing like that

Great album, defiantly one of there finest to date!:maniac:

Very nice album, but who is screaming like a bitch on "Din"?

It's not bad. But, it needs to be heavier, or maybe I need to listen to it more.

It isn't so bad than I thought i would be. They have those choirs back which they missed from their last album. I would say that it isn't as good as Theli or Vovin

First time i listened to it I was a bit disappointed, 2th time was better, 3rd time was great, 4th brilliant! For sure not their best but still a album full of outstanding musical excellence, being the 4 first tracks some of the best i heard this year. Sure it has some flaws (Hellequin, Chu Chulain) but still a very solid release and, incredibly, original! Land Of Canaan is a opus that mix a amazing variety of folk instruments with some of the best operatic moments. This song has it all. After all those years bringing us some of the finest metal releases, Therion still manage to bring us this "operatic" metal full of originality. They have my respect! Here's my rating :

1 - 10
2 - 10
3 - 10
4 - 11
5 - 8
6 - 9
7 - 7
8 - 9
9 - 9
10 - 8
11 - 9

So : 10 + 10 + 10 + 11 + 8 + 9 + 7 + 9 + 9 + 8 + 9 / 11 = 9,09

Best album of the year

Disgusting album! Cheesy and pompous like the others before it but almost without any good and memorable songs that I would like to listen more than once. "Sitra Ahra","The Shells Are Open","After The Inquisition: Children" are at least decent and tolerable.

You can call it whatever you want, but disgusting???... Man, that is really extreme, since this album is really good!!! I don't get it, but imo, you should hear it at least 2 more times. I checked your tastes and they are ok (imo), but i don't get that rating / hate for Therion

Cheers!

Written by Vonpire on 20.09.2010 at 21:41

You can call it whatever you want, but disgusting???... Man, that is really extreme, since this album is really good!!! I don't get it, but imo, you should hear it at least 2 more times. I checked your tastes and they are ok (imo), but i don't get that rating / hate for Therion

Cheers!

The rating 5 is OK in my opinion. But you are right - "disgusting" - is too strong word for such album.
There is nothing "wrong" with "Sitra Ahra" in general - good sound, but ... I don't like it at all. Speaking about latest Therion albums - I only liked some 27% of theyr songs. Some were really good, but only a few of them. In this album, on the other hand I could not find any for my liking.
To be honest,I am not very much in this pompose and epic style of Therion or symphonic or power metal (with a few exeptions) - I find it stupid ... and those vocals.... damn .... I can not stand it!
In my humble opinion "Sitra Ahra" is THE WORST Therion album so far, and I have heard them all. I will listen to "Theli" or "Deggial" insted....

After catching a preliminary listen to the entire album on Youtube before Nuclear Blast laid down the hammer of justice on them and got it revoked due to licensing claims, I have the following observations:

A) The music isn't simple. It's the most modern implementation of their Deggial music style, an album that I didn't like much on first listen and then decided that I REALLY liked it once I understood what the hell they were doing. Secret of the Runes, Vovin, Theli, Lemuria, Sirius B and Gothic Kabbalah were comparably simpler and easier to pick up at first listen since they were more rock-oriented. Wine of Aluqah was a much more accessible song than Via Nocturne. Son of the Staves of Time was a much more accessible song than Eternal Return. That's kind of how Sitra Ahra is going, and now that I understand what's going on with it, I'm much happier than my initial reaction of 'Man, Children of the Stone and Sitra Ahra are the songs I'm going to remember on this dumb album.' Because that's not the case at all.

If you find yourself having trouble liking this album, remind yourself that this is one that you have to give a fair amount of time to. If you still don't like it afterward, then that's ok - but it's not a toss-after-one-spin disc.

B) The music that is simple doesn't seem to be very good. Hellequin is pretty weak. Din is pretty mediocre. Both of these, of course, are impressions at first listen - but unlike a lot of the other songs, I don't think there's a wealth of depth to be had with these.

C) Sitra Ahra being the 'single' sets a lot of unfortunate expectations for the album. Since the style is so radically different from the rest of the album, I think it set up a lot of people to expect an album full of catchy Therion rock songs rather than heavily orchestrated compositions.

D) Sitra Ahra is a really, really great album that I haven't had the time or the energy to really parse yet. It's way better than Gothic Kabbalah. I'm definitely, absolutely, certainly going to be buying the US release as soon as humanly possible and it's nice to have a really good band that consistently puts out decent albums even as they continue to modernize.

Written by Jeeers on 20.09.2010 at 23:31

Written by Vonpire on 20.09.2010 at 21:41

You can call it whatever you want, but disgusting???... Man, that is really extreme, since this album is really good!!! I don't get it, but imo, you should hear it at least 2 more times. I checked your tastes and they are ok (imo), but i don't get that rating / hate for Therion

Cheers!

The rating 5 is OK in my opinion. But you are right - "disgusting" - is too strong word for such album.
There is nothing "wrong" with "Sitra Ahra" in general - good sound, but ... I don't like it at all. Speaking about latest Therion albums - I only liked some 27% of theyr songs. Some were really good, but only a few of them. In this album, on the other hand I could not find any for my liking.
To be honest,I am not very much in this pompose and epic style of Therion or symphonic or power metal (with a few exeptions) - I find it stupid ... and those vocals.... damn .... I can not stand it!
In my humble opinion "Sitra Ahra" is THE WORST Therion album so far, and I have heard them all. I will listen to "Theli" or "Deggial" insted....

I really think you would like this album if you give it a listen again. After all a fellow contributer of this site, which is the only one i seen until now that rated Ayreon - 01011001 with same note as mine (6) and that thinks that Ayreon is a really overrated band (I think exactly the same ), should be warned about it. Sitra Ahra is indeed a good album , and if you look at my original post i wrote that, "at first listen i was disappointed". But then it made click

(u can skip Hellequin , Cu Chulain and Din, which in fact are the weakest spots on this album, I don't like some of those vocals (the ayreonish type ones) used on these songs.)

If it wasn't for it i would rated Sitra Ahra with 10 easily.

Cheers

Written by Vonpire on 19.09.2010 at 20:40

First time i listened to it I was a bit disappointed, 2th time was better, 3rd time was great, 4th brilliant!

I hope it goes the same for me, because after the first listen I was quite dissapointed about it. Well, maybe disappointed isn't exactly the word, but Sitra Ahra just didn't hit me as much as most of Therion's album did on the first note. Even Gothic Kabbalah, that some have quite negative opinion about, sounded great when I first heard it. Nonetheless, I really do enjoy fully the opening Intro/Sitra Ahra and hope the rest grows on me, because up to date Theiron has never let me cold with any of their album. Gotta say Vikström's vocals are IMHO the weakest link on the album, can't really enjoy him singing.

I think Cristopher listened too much Diablo Swing Orchestra....

Written by tricky on 21.09.2010 at 13:41

I think Cristopher listened too much Diablo Swing Orchestra....

Two problems with that theory would be:

1. It doesn't sound anything like DSO.

2. The songs from Sitra Ahra were written before DSW were formed. It is an album of songs from the same pile of tracks that Lemuria and Sirius B was made of.

Okay, my point of view, why I said that... The composing and the structure of these songs on this album are not the same like in L and SB. The old Therion was about making atmoshpere and - sorry for the word - patos. The heavy guitar parts with the choirs passed to each other to make this special and miraculous feeling. But now... Everything turned to the other side. The guitar parts are just for colouring the music. This music is not the same "metal" music like before. Some parts of the album is like an ordinary soundtrack for a movie (for instance, the last song with children... the original idea was great, but the result...).
Why did I mention DSO? What is DSO about? Making fun with choirs, lots of instruments, some heavy parts... Making "random" song-structures to surprise and entertain people on a simple way. For me, SA is not serious enough to make the pathetic Therion feeling like before. Too random, too popular. No logic, no structure in the songs. Few catchy tunes, few musicial performance.
Maybe, this album is more than we can expect from an ordinary musician... But we are talking about Therion! I'm really fond of LK, Theli, Vovin, SOTR, Lemuria, SB, and I think, Gothic Kabbalah is also a masterpiece (not the same way, like the others), but this album... sorry, it was a disappoint for me.

It seems to me that this album is a "love it or hate it."

Gladly, i like it a lot