THERION Sitra Ahar CD (2010)

Christofer Johnsson spent the nineties slowly dismantling a perfectly good death metal band and rebuilding it as a full orchestral occult opera project. Most people said he'd lost the plot. He had not lost the plot. He had found a much more dramatic plot.

By 2010's Sitra Ahra, Therion had been at this symphonic metal game long enough to make it look inevitable. The album draws on Qliphothic Kabbalah for its concept, which means the lyric sheet reads like a grimoire and the arrangements sound like a black mass staged at the Vienna State Opera. It is completely committed and completely unhinged in the best possible way. If you think metal and classical have nothing to say to each other, Therion have been proving you wrong since before most of the genre's current fans were born. This sits comfortably alongside the orchestral darkness of early Moonspell and the gothic grandeur of Nightwish at their most ambitious.

CD pressing. Full length album. Sweden. Genre: Symphonic/Operatic/Death Metal.

Fans of: Moonspell, Theatre of Tragedy, Epica, Nightwish, Amorphis, Tristania.