Track By Tracks: Siren's Rain - Rise Forth (2021)

1. Prologue:

The prologue sets the listener up for the themes of the album. We were inspired by Eluveite and the prologue on Helvetios. It has a similar feel. You may imagine an embattled man in a cave with a fire, by the ocean during a storm, contemplating the events of the world and of his life.

2. Keepers:

The first single off the album was inspired by the Water Protectors with the South Dakota Pipeline. The images of indigenous persons, tribes, and environmentalists protecting our planet from the incredibly greedy corporations who are literally raping the earth of its resources while destroying it, were central to the creation of this track. The very first spoken words are from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelly (Husband of Mary Shelly, author of Frankenstein) about leaving the city and being in nature, the true music. This song is a call to action. Check out the interweaving of the mandolin and the soaring guitar solos.

3. Corporeal Chains:

This song introduces nyckelharpa to the band’s instrumentation. It has an incredibly sinister tone and gives an ominous feeling that something incredibly horrid is about to happen. Despite that, the song has a pop-y feel to it and a catchy chorus. The singer struggles with Lyme disease which “feels like being infested with evil monsters”. Lyrically this song discusses the Venom-like condition of having an incurable condition that you have to live with. Vocally, Rena took chances and expanded to a black metal range.

4. Rise Forth:

The title track to the album, Rise Forth is the war party battle song of the album. In thinking about “songs that folk metal bands need to have”, we felt that we needed a battle song. Ed, who sketches out guitar lines for a majority of the songs, is heavily influenced by the galloping of Iron Maiden songs, and you hear that featured on the track. Rena pictured the Braveheart battle speech when writing the lyrics in the pre-chorus and chorus, full moon exposure, of course. Our good friend, singer from Jesus Wears Armani, lent his voice to the voiceover on the transition piece of track which leads into the group frame drums.

5. Borderline:

Right away you hear the mandolin and the drums setting up the tone for the song. When writing lyrics, Rena often likes to have a personal meaning to the song as well as leaving it vague enough for listeners to create their own meaning. This song is about boundaries, literal or figurative and that mental/emotional struggle you may have within yourself or with the world. This is another track which features the entire band playing frame drum with group vocals.

6. Pennies for the Ferryman:

This is one of the older songs on the album, first written in 2017 or 2018. Pennies for the Ferryman tells the story of the journey on the River Styx in Greek mythology. When one died, coins would be placed upon the deceased’s eyes so they could pay the toll across the river to the land of the dead. This track has a more traditional metal feel with the guitars and drums. The pre-chorus “Bring me your dead” was inspired from Monty Python’s “Bring out your dead” scene.

7.13 Steps to Hell:

13 Steps to Hell appeared on Nightmares from the Abyss. It was reworked with elevated percussion, nyckelharpa and harp. The feel is completely different and albeit spookier from its previous version. The lyrics tell the tale of a local Washington state legend in which a family built their mausoleum upon the mouth of hell and very spooky things would happen when one would walk down the 13 steps to their tomb.

8. Discarded Hope:

This is the band’s collective favorite on the album. It is over 9 minutes long and is quite the composition. Note the rotating solos in the musical bridge between mandolin, harp, and guitars. The bass keeps things flowing with building anticipation. While it has a melodic/medieval metal feel to the lyrics, they were inspired by Rena being frustrated with mounting stupidity on the internet, hence the title “Discarded Hope”.

9. Folk Metal Funk:

This funky instrumental track was a complete fluke. Mike was jamming along on the mandolin and we went with it. It wrote itself in a free form experimental way. We felt that it needed to stay instrumental. The guitars and mandolin really circle around each other with the bass doing its thing in the background. Rena plays the tambourine throughout the piece. On each album we like to have a “one-off track” that is novel and completely different from the rest of the album. For funsies.