Sacriversum

Capturing Poland’s Sacriversum six albums into the band’s more than decade long career, Sigma Draconis is a complex blend of goth, classic metal, death and prog. Spacey keyboards, and science fiction themed lyrics and artwork, provide other-worldly atmospheres that contrasts with old school virtuosic guitar soloing, just as deep female vocals (not the quickly becoming typical soprano operatics) oppose the less prominent but equally penetrating death metal snarls. The resulting totality follows the pattern set by Sacriversum’s earlier material, but offers a more pleasing balance of its disparate parts than the previous outing, Mozartia. Moving easily from one element to another, Sigma Draconis’s various twists and turns have a narrative quality that complements its verbal story, but the album ends too abruptly to offer a fully satisfying resolution.