“Snakes and Sirens” is a Dutch band formed in May 2004 by Bert Hosmar (bass), Björn Veldhof (drums) en Emiel Rolefes (vocals). Later on Bas ter Meer (guitar) and Jeffrey Revet (keyboards) completed the line-up. The band made several demo’s and played quite some concerts. In the beginning they played covers from bands like Metallica and Nightwish.

In 2006 Snakes and Sirens release their debut-album “Sailor’s Story”, a combination of metal, melodic and symphonic rock. The sound of the album is superb, responsible for this is producer Joost van den Broek (After Forever). Again he delivers a good production. There are a lot of bands whom debut-album is produced by producers less better then Joost.

One minus point is the length of the album; with 6 songs it takes not quite 28 minutes. In view of the capacity of the cd some more songs could have been recorded. On the other hand, I prefer good songs above meaningless songs that only full up the CD.

Fortunately “Sailor’s Story” contains only great songs with strong melodies.
The beginning of the first track, the title song, is an intro with heavy guitar and keyboards followed by heavy guitarrifs, driving bass and straight drums. Emiel is a singer who knows the limitations of his voice, so there is no over the top singing or screaming and yet full of power; I like his voice.

Favourite tracks are “Try to Escape” and “Visited”. “Try to Escape” is a driving song with great symphonic keyboards and a prominent role for the guitarrifs. Just listen to the great guitar solo! “Visited” is a great powerballad with subtle piano and again a great guitar solo. It gives me goose bumps! I am looking forward to seeing this band playing live. For it is clear, “Snakes and Sirens” is a gain to the Dutch metal scene.