Siberian's big doomy guitars

This one didn't wear very well over repeat listens...it seemed to get more emo-y every time I put it on.

But anyway, here's my review. I gave it a six, but it reads higher. It ran last week in PM.

"Siberian emerged in Seattle about three years ago, on the strength of a samizdat cassette demo, four songs long, and followed early this year by a more polished six song EP, Hey Celestial. 'Paper Birds', the strongest song from With Me, the debut full-length, also appeared on the EP, but the rest is entirely new material, indicating a band that has, at a fairly early stage of their development, found a cohesive, consistent, compelling sound.

"That sound is heavily influenced by the shoe-gazers’ love of layered, pedal-altered guitars, as well as the emotional directness and dynamic variety of American emo. You can hear little bits of U2 anthemic-ness, Smiths-ish mope lyrics and post-rock-ish tempo and time signature shifts. And yet, it’s also rather distinctive, relying on chiming, shivering walls of distortion, plaintive vocals and pounding drum beats. They sound a great deal like the Scottish band the Twilight Sad, though perhaps without the scathing self-scrutiny that tempers their grandiosity. This is guitar music that aspires to large scale and—even on a small budget—mostly achieves it, without any concessions to self-doubt or irony. "

More here: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/48308/siberian-with-me/

There's a media player with multiple tracks at the label site:http://www.sonicboomrecordings.com