Sideshow Symphonies is an album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 by the Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 avant-garde metal band Arcturus

Arcturus (band)

Arcturus is an avant-garde metal band formed in Norway in 1987. They named it Arcturus , after the Behenian fixed star Arcturus.-Biography:The band has released four official full-length albums...

. It was released on September 19, 2005. It is the first to feature Simen "ICS Vortex" Hestnæs

ICS Vortex

Simen Hestnæs , also known as I.C.S. Vortex, or just simply Vortex, is a Norwegian musician, best known as the current vocalist of the avant-garde metal band Arcturus, the current vocalist and bass guitarist to the progressive black metal band Borknagar, and the former bass guitarist and backing...

 as the principal vocalist and Tore Moren as second guitarist, as well as the first Arcturus album released by Season of Mist

Season of Mist

Season of Mist is a record label and record distributor with subsidiaries in France and the United States. The record label was founded in 1996 by Michael S. Berberian in Marseille, France. From the start releasing black metal, pagan metal and death metal records, the label moved on to releasing...

. It marks yet another change in Arcturus' sound, with a cold, dreamy aesthetic featuring relatively quiet guitars, more prominent vocals, and a slightly reduced use of synthesizers.

A problem during the mastering process occurred which rendered this album to have some audio quality issues such as a noticeable decrease in volume on track #2. The label was rumored to be working on a fix for future pressings of the CD, but this seems to have never been addressed as the audio glitches are still present.

Track listing

1. "Hibernation Sickness Complete" – 5:02
2. "Shipwrecked Frontier Pioneer" – 8:32
3. "Deamon Painter" – 5:33
4. "Nocturnal Vision Revisited" – 5:16
5. "Evacuation Code Deciphered" – 6:16
6. "Moonshine Delirium" – 7:10
7. "White Noise Monster" – 3:55
8. "Reflections" – 3:40
9. "Hufsa" (The Groke
   The Groke
   The Groke is a fictional character in the Moomin world created by Tove Jansson...
   
   ) – 5:07

Artwork

The album artwork features a modification of the artwork

Pioneer plaque

The Pioneer plaques are a pair of gold-anodized aluminium plaques which were placed on board the 1972 Pioneer 10 and 1973 Pioneer 11 spacecraft, featuring a pictorial message, in case either Pioneer 10 or 11 are intercepted by extraterrestrial life...

 found on the Pioneer 10 deep space probe

Pioneer 10

Pioneer 10 is a 258-kilogram robotic space probe that completed the first interplanetary mission to Jupiter, and became the first spacecraft to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System. The project was managed by the NASA Ames Research Center and the contract for the construction of the...

, possibly a reference to the song "Shipwrecked Frontier Pioneer" on the album. The original picture of the naked man is mirrored so that he appears to have three legs and a mask is added, while the image of the naked woman does not appear at all. Also shown is the symbolic representation of the probe's trajectory and a schematic representation of the hyperfine transition of hydrogen

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...

.

Credits

• Simen "ICS Vortex" Hestnæs
  ICS Vortex
  Simen Hestnæs , also known as I.C.S. Vortex, or just simply Vortex, is a Norwegian musician, best known as the current vocalist of the avant-garde metal band Arcturus, the current vocalist and bass guitarist to the progressive black metal band Borknagar, and the former bass guitarist and backing...
  
   - vocals
• Steinar Sverd Johnsen
  Steinar Sverd Johnsen
  Steinar Sverd Johnsen is a Norwegian keyboardist and composer, born 1972. Sverd last played keyboards and synthesizers in Arcturus and was also the main composer for the band. He formed the band with Jan Axel Blomberg of Mayhem in 1987, originally under the moniker Mortem...
  
   - keyboards
• Hellhammer
  Jan Axel Blomberg
  Jan Axel "Hellhammer" Blomberg is a three time Spellemannprisen award-winning heavy metal drummer. He is most well known for his drumming with the band Mayhem, with which he began his career...
  
  - drums
• Knut M. Valle - guitars
• Tore Moren - guitars
• Hugh Steven James Mingay aka "Skoll" - bass
• Silje Wergeland - Guest vocals on "Shipwrecked Frontier Pioneers" and "Evacuation Code Deciphered"