Sirenia

Sirenia is a gothic metal band from Stavanger, Norway which incorporates a mixture of gothic metal and symphonic metal, as well as extreme metal and death metal elements. The vocals consist of death grunts, operatic female vocals and a clean male singer. The lyrics, written by Morten Veland, tell a loose conceptual story that began at Widow's Weeds, while he was still a member of Tristania.

The band uses melodic instrumentals, synthesizers, and distorted guitars with female vocals, male death vocals, clean male vocals, a choir, and violins. The lyrics are concerned with human existence, emotion, and mental states.

Sirenia came together in early 2001, when Morten parted ways with his former band Tristania due to musical disagreements and personal differences. The band failed to find a suitable singer prior to recording in France, so they conducted auditions and found Fabienne Gondamin for the recording of At Sixes and Sevens. After recording one album with Sirenia ("At Sixes and Sevens"); Fabienne Gondamin was replaced by Henriette Bordvik with whom the band recorded two albums ("An Elixir For Existence" and plus one EP "Sirenian Shores".

On November 2005 Henriette Bordvik leaves the band for personal reasons.

Recently, they released a third album - "Nine Destinies and a Downfall". The album features new singer Monika Pedersen from Denmark, who joined the band on April 2006. Bjørnar Landa (from Artifact) joined the band while recording "Nine Destinies and a Downfall".

The former vocalist, guitar player, main songwriter and text composer of Tristania, Morten Veland, laid the foundation for a new contribution to the gothic/metal/rock scene a few years back. Those contributions were brought along when he formed Sirenia.

On November 5, 2007, Monika Pedersen quits the band due to musical disagreements. Her departure causes Sirenia to pull out of a planned European tour with Therion.