Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very solid debut album of Seattle indie-rockers, January 9, 2008
Let me state upfront that I knew very little, ok nothing, about Siberian until I heard them on internet-only indie-rock station WOXY, "The Future of Rock and Roll", and as soon as I heard them, I knew I had to check out more of this band. Apparently, the band has been together since 2004, and after an initial EP, their debut album was released in Fall, 2007.
"With Me" (11 tracks, 43 min.) starts off with the best song on the album, a brilliant "Belgian Beer and Catholic Girls" (and it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm from Belgium originally...): a sound reminiscent of Editors, a sniff of Interpol, even early Radiohead (and no, not Queens of the Stone Ages...). After that follows an equally appealing "Paper Birds", the best known song of the band and the only song on here which also appeared on the earlier EP. Other highlights for me include "Futuristic Kids", one of the many uptempo songs on the album, with great interplay between the 2 electric guitars, and "Wolf and Crane". There are 2 slower, reflective songs towards the end of the album, "Georg Bendemann" and the beautiful closer "Islands Forever".
In all, "With Me" is a terrific album, and I can only hope that Siberian will take this on the road outside the Northwest of the country, where they play regularly. Can't wait to see how these guys sound live. Highly recommended!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This should go national, December 19, 2007
This is a great disc and well worth the money. The second track, "Paper Birds" was played by our local station here in Seattle, and by the second chorus I knew that I had to check out the whole disc. "Paper Birds" is definitely the stand-out track, but there are many other nice tracks as well that feel familiar the second time you hear them.
Like all great rock, a lot of the sounds are derivative of other good bands. I hear Radiohead, Muse, Modest Mouse, Queens of the Stone Age.
The tracks sound perfect, very polished and mixed beautifully for headphones. I always fear early releases because they frequently sound like they were recorded on-the-cheap; not so here. This record sounds as well-produced as any national major-label record does.
Support these guys by checking out their disc. I'm looking forward to seeing them live very soon!
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3.0 out of 5 stars
+1/2 -- Accomplished, if indistinct, Britpop-inspired indie-rock, March 25, 2008
This Seattle quartet's first full length CD follows in the guitar-indie-rock vein of their 2007 debut EP, "Hey Celestial!" Finn Parnell sings in a loping style that's lackadaisical in tempo but rich in emotion, with languid slides into sing-song falsetto that will remind you of Radiohead's Thom Yorke. The vocal tone is key, because the lyrics are poetically opaque ("I'll swim in your hair, it's like a river, the Colorado running through you") and run over, under and around the beat, ala Morrissey. The guitars create a wall of electric sound that's ably punctuated by Aaron Benson's drumming, and though the arrangements are concise (mostly clocking in around 4-minutes), there's a sense of the prog-rock changes and the longer, hypnotic forms of post-punk bands like The Feelies. It's the jazz-inflected moments (plus the short lapse to near-acoustic on "Georg Bendemann") that distinguish Siberian from the dozens of similar Britpop (or Britpop-inspired) indie-rock bands. The band is accomplished, but the spectrum within which they play is so narrow as to make their CD difficult to distinguish from similar works by Radiohead, Keane, Editors, Doves, Muse, Minus the Bear, Slender Means, and others. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]
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~ Barcelona
~ Nada Surf
~ Friendly Fires
~ Ravens & Chimes
~ Now Every Children Now
by Siberian Sun 
