Beating the elephant about the room, mental health metallers Sirens Over Sumeria’s self-titled album takes the fun away from emocore and tries to ration it back with dark portends and shady pretension. Alluring to some but alluding to all.
With more musical likeness to a math text book than the artistry it invokes, Sirens Over Sumeria is primed with scaling arpeggios that substitute for riffs. Songs broken by their component parts formulate their composition with loose hooks and unelaborate bridges (if any) that transition between the substance. The method impresses a tactile sense of overdoing things.
It is not composed fully as a monotonous lesson in learning scales and other impressions. Luckily there are some neat solos interspersed between the dry percussive chugging and preachy vocal tracks. If these were deducted from the tunes what would remain is more sum than substance.
Attenuating the persecution of liars in black and white the synthwork is a dank contrast to the warm heaviness in the guitars tone. These are well crafted but the guitars do not mix well with their tune. Following them like a politician, and for an album with such grandiose accusations it amounts to an intangible musical amalgam between influences. When Sirens Over Sumeria do riffs they do do it well but the intensity of the ritual chugging throughout the album does not often peak and is used only to inflict drudgery.
7/10
