After the commercial success of Nine Destinies And A Downfall SIRENIA took an obligatory break; Monika Pedersen left the band and Morten started the search for her replacement. As he explains in the interview that will be published very soon he never stopped writing material for the new album.
So, after the adequate time after the announcement of the Arlyn Morten and co. are back with 13th Floor. Although, I like Nine Destinies And A Downfall I think that it was too Gothic with less power compared to first SIRENIA works. So, I was very curious to see how this album would sound taking into account the important change behind the microphone. Well, The Path To Decay satisfied my curiosity and made come to the conclusion that Ailyn -the new singer- sounds pretty much the same with Monika. She seems to have a wider range but her general timbre follows her predecessor's path. The song is closer to the the previous album with a mid tempo and atmospheric keyboards. One pleasant surprise is the return of Morten's growls that were progressively cut down album by album. Along with the additional growls I found that the songs sounds more rich through the orchestral arrangements that Morten likes to implement here and there. A fine example of this is Winterborn 77 that enters with an almost TYPE O NEGATIVE keyboard vibe and then brings the addictive vocal melodies that have become the sound signature of SIRENIA. Sirens Of The Seven Seas has something from the late THERION works mainly due to the combination of choir and male vocals. This song pays respect to the Gothic influences from SISTERS OF MERCY with the guitar based structure and the hammond-like keyboards.
SIRENIA added another very good album to their backcatalogue totally unaffected by the singer changes. Morten keeps writing music that is already identifiable as the SIRENIA sound without discovering something new but cleverly combining his influences. This album sounds better than the previous one and I think it gives some hope (at least to me) that the Sixes And Seven more aggresive days will return.