Sirrah - Did Tomorrow Come... (1997)

I would be remiss to think of anything possibly quirkier than the track "Panacea" from Sirrah's debut, but I think in general, it's follow-up full-length Did Tomorrow Come... is much more progressive and quirky, while still keeping a lot of its fundamentals intact. You can still hear a lot of elements of anything from My Dying Bride to Paradise Lost to Pyogenesis to Moonspell, but the Polish band was not settling its butt down on any laurels, but writing that style into the future. Upbeat, peppy, perky ideas are strewn throughout the ten tracks, and the band seem unwilling to be pigeonholed into any one niche. I'd almost risk that Did Tomorrow Come... is like Sirrah, only Arcturus got ahold of it and infected it with their zany carnival attitude.

The production is cleaner here, really giving us better access to its scattershot components, from the ethereal female vocal lines to the busier guitars which at times almost border on a blend of thrash and doom metal. Synthesizers are used sparingly, as well as pianos, and the majority of the vocals bounce between the guttural expectations and then a wavier, sad or drugged sounding cleaner male vocal that is perhaps one of the weakest parts of the album. Perhaps due to the accent or confidence level, but there are moments that it sounds quite good, and others where it feels like its lost the plot. Regardless, it's only a minor intrusion that can't quite mar the surface of the obvious excitement below this. It's like the band was listening to their first album and decided not to sound so sad anymore, and gave each other a kick in the rump while they were in the studio, or maybe just a lot of drugs. To its credit, though, the writing doesn't lose a whole lot of impact from where they were at two years prior.

It doesn't have a truly standout track for me like "Acme", but at the same time, there's not really anything goofy like "Panacea" to spoil it. The closest might be "Madcap" which sounds like someone took the orchestration from the old Celtic Frost Into the Pandemonium... album and combined that with a strange Gothic chamber quartet, but in fact that song's tremendous fun. The closer, "Floor's Embrace", starts off pulsing off like it's going to be some mix of dance and folk music, but that one is rescued quite quickly when the great guitar riff rips forth. Did Tomorrow Come... is fascinating stuff, despite me not liking a few of the vocals, it's quite sticky and a superior experience to Acme only if you're willing to chuck your expectations to the curb and revel in its unique boldness. Had Sirrah continued on much longer, who knows what they might have become? I could certainly hear them hobnobbing with the likes of Arcturus, Solefald, Sigh or Diablo Swing Orchestra. This is a fun album that too few give a damn about.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

Sirrah - Acme (1996)

Like a lot of folks, I was introduced to Sirrah through one of the Beauty in Darkness compilations that Nuclear Blast released; the title track to this debut featured prominently as one of the standouts there, and I had to track down the full-length debut of the same name, Acme, a name which I'm sure we associate more with the old Roadrunner and Wile E Coyote cartoons than Gothic, melancholic doom. I was taken aback by the songwriting itself, there is a bit more involved, a few more layers to peel back than you might be used to, and not unlike the first two Moonspell records, this had a more epic feel than some of the stuff coming from Theater of Tragedy or The Sins of Thy Beloved. In fact, the great use of rhythms and melody also reminded me of one of my favorite albums, Amorphis' Elegy, only if it were coming from a different background perspective than Finland and 70s prog and folk influence.

Well, that one particular track, "Acme", is magnificent even to this day, one of the more glorious individual tracks to emerge from that once-budding European scene, but it's hardly the only success this disc had to offer. The blend of higher pitched, catchy female vocal lines, mournful Goth growls, lighter toned keyboards, strings ("Bitter Seas"), and electric guitar melodies is very well honed across much of the album's playlength, and even where they drop out a bit of it and get darker with something like "On the Verge", reminiscent of earlier Paradise Lost had Fernando Ribeiro replaced Nick Holmes. You've got all those elements of Romance, Vampiric drama, and haunted castle vibes that you might have desired from Gothic/doom or even black metal, but configured in a slightly different package, perhaps due to minor cultural or regional aesthetics that the band members grew up with. Clearly this was much different than what Vader or Behemoth were coming up with, and further showcased Poland as a potential new hotbed for various sub-genres of metal.

There is one GLARING miscalculation on the album that will have you falling apart in laughter, but sadly to the detriment of Acme as a whole, and that is "Panacea", a track which resembles some old surf or cruise rock only if it were a gaggle of Gothic weirdos riding the waves. It's likely included to be a bit of harmless fun and break up the seriousness of the other material, but the rest is consistent enough that it just sticks out like a very sore thumb. That sort of thing might have fit the band Ghoul on their albums, which are quite silly all around, but it just doesn't belong here. In fact I'm shocked it wasn't omitted from further pressings, although this one hasn't gotten much action beyond the 90s whatsoever. Without that track, this is a stronger effort, but even with that warning, you owe it to yourself to check out Acme if you have any interest in that brief period where the sounds of the big British death/doom trio (Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema) were blended with Goth orchestration and drama to create a wave of fresher bands.

Verdict: Win [8/10]