Siren’s Breath | Beautiful Aftermath | 2017

Hey guys, it is time for a review. This time, we are going to a review of a rock band residing in Texas. I was asked to give this group a review so here I am. Before we jump into this article, let’s go ahead and place some background details on this band. The following information below can be found on a band page of their’s. Please take a moment to just go over that, if you’d like.

During the summer of 2014, Rachael Lacina-Taylor responded to a flyer posted by guitarist Christopher Cornell Brown at a music shop that simply said, “Singer Wanted For Original Rock Band.” Rachael and Chris held a couple of jam sessions with drummer Ben Fordyce, and the band was formed.

Much of the first year together was spent writing material. Chris had written and recorded dozens of instrumental guitar songs prior to the band. Ben added his aggressive and dynamic drumming to the tracks while Rachael worked out vocal melodies and lyrics to complete those songs. By late 2015, the band had enough original music to record an album.

In 2016, Siren’s Breath began working with The Cardinal Coalition in Austin, Texas, to record their debut album: Beautiful Aftermath. They released their first single, “Beowulf,” in November of 2016, and followed up with “(un) Caged” in July 2017. The band is also working on a saga titled Siren’s Breath which tells the story of the creation of the mythical Sirens and a rock musical version of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

In Fall of 2017, Siren’s Breath partnered up with Chance’s Now Entertainment. Thanks to the help of Julie Charlie Anne Harper at Chance’s, the band is preparing to play live festivals beginning in 2018. Siren’s Breath welcomes Chris Gray on bass and Nathaniel “Nasty Nate” Stanhope on drums for upcoming live performances.

Beautiful Aftermath
Siren’s Breath’s Debut album was released in September of 2017. The album features songs that are inspired by great literary works such as Harry Potter, To Kill a Mockingbird, Beowulf, and The Lord of the Rings, along with other songs that deal with themes of authenticity, overcoming limitations, and reflection. Chris Brown, Rachael, and Ben wrote and recorded all songs for Beautiful Aftermath.

Alright, so, let’s get into this. Again, this is a rock group, so any expectations of anything heavy will be going out the door. What I myself will be looking for at this time will be things such as lyricism, instrumentals, and vocal patterns and just how they all come together as a whole. With all that said, let’s start with Lyricism.

The album Beautiful Aftermath is, lyrically speaking, good at times. I do appreciate the idea of telling stories, no matter what genre you are playing, however, I feel like a little bit of this album has too many vocal comfort issues. What I mean by that is that when you’re making music, unless it’s supposed to be specifically a bunch of vocalization, it’s not really needed and takes away from what more could be done vocally . That also being said, it goes hand in hand with vocal patterns. It’s overdone a lot in this album. Every song has some long amount of vocalizing that could be used to just play out the instruments, or maybe have some more lyrics implemented.

Transitioning into Vocal patterns and vocals in general I can say that I do like some of the songs on here. However, 90% of the songs played sound the same vocally, branching back into the vocalization issue I was making a point on earlier. You shouldn’t be afraid of taking risks vocally, it’s how you branch as a musician, and I feel like there is still a bit of fear to be had, at least in an underlying sense, in the vocal patterns and such displayed here. Something to also address, while on some songs the effect used on the vocalist’s voice fits well with some of the tracks, it is for sure not the same result for all the other tracks. Some of it clashes and actual causes some conflicting noises within the tracks that make me feel more or less that I’m listening to a live album more so than a recorded one, which isn’t bad, but in this case, it’s not the greatest thing. Overall. I think vocally speaking, a lot more could have been implemented. To be fair, this is their debut album from 2017 in September, so, they could have more articulate material coming this way in 2018 that we may not be seeing just yet, can’t really say.

Moving on, I actually want to tackle two more things: instrumentals and the unique attributes of the music, if there is any. Instrumentally speaking, this is very akin, at least to me, to Northern Hues, which is Dan Avidan’s first band, aka co-let’s player of the Game Grumps and also the front man for Ninja Sex Party. It plays off some very nice and soothing melodies that are just pleasant to listen to. I don’t really believe I have any issues with the instrumental work done for this album except maybe adding a bit more diversity. The only track that really stood out to me as different was Grendel and Beowulf. That track really picked up the pace of Beautiful Aftermath. To sum up the topic, the instrumentals were good, just needed some more diversity.

The last thing to tackle now, is the band unique? I would have to say yes and no. This type of music obviously has been done quite a bit, and so, in the same way as metal, it’s very hard to be unique, so no shame in that that really. I suppose one of the unique attributes of Siren’s Breath’s Beautiful Aftermath is the naming conventions used for the tracks and the lyricism. Vocally, I think it has the ability to be unique, but I think there is still some experimentation to be had with that. Hopefully, we can see some of that experimentation explored more so in whatever project they have up and coming, if they do have one.

To add an ending note, the band isn’t bad, by any means, but with this debut, it has shown me that there is a lot of room for growth. Take that in stride. musicians need to grow and change things up all the time. In the words of We Came As Romans, “To Move On Is To Grow”. Take anything that sounds like a pro as a pro and a con as a way you can strengthen yourselves as musicians. Appreciated the opportunity to review this album and I hope you all enjoyed the review.

Score: 5/10

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