Goodbyes do happen and especially in the metal scene. While there are plenty of bands reuniting after many years, there are also bands out there laying down their instruments after a long termed career. I have to be honest; I quite frankly don’t care about many bands quitting, but Sentenced have been one of my favourite metal acts from Finland for quite some years. This didn’t come out of the blue though, apparently they’ve been planning this for quite some time, hence the fitting album title ‘The Funeral Album’. Their 8th and final release, this is the raw deal, and oh boy - this isn’t no shitty funeral album…

This disc hits off with an awesome surprise entitled ‘May Today Become The Day’. This intro made me instantly think of their ‘Down’ –era, it’s incredibly catchy and the song displays nice riffing with steady, sharp and tight drumbeats. I was kind of expecting a second ‘The Cold White Light’, which was mainly focusing on darker, gothic based structured songs. I totally love this new combination of heavy, fast stuff along with the usual gothic/dark trademarks. The theme of the album is still in the same trusted spirit ‘suicide, death, and depression’, so on that part nothing’s changed. Even a bigger surprise for me was ‘Where Waters Fall Frozen’. Back to their roots! ‘Where Waters Fall Frozen’ is a 1-minute long instrumental death metal attack, containing some great riffs and fast powerful drum blasts. Shame they didn’t take this track a bit more serious and made it a full length song with even some possible growls in it….? Ah, one can dream, one can dream…..

This brings me to the next track right after entitled ‘Despair Ridden Hearts’ which is easily my favourite song on the album. ‘Despair Ridden Hearts’ starts off with harmonic and clean guitar work; Ville’s voice has never sounded better. Much more focused along with the music, and much more raw than their previous releases. On ‘The Cold White Light’ his voice was way too much in the front, leaving the music more in the background. After a minute or two, drummer Ranta shows his old class double bass work, with the bass and guitars following right along with them. This is awesome stuff, very catchy, yet a punch-in-your-face track. Rest of the songs on “The Funeral Album” follow the more trusted dark/gothic spirit of their most recent releases.

I’m not exactly sure if this is what the ‘new’ fan can appreciate, since their previous release was mainly focused on the more dark/gothic side, but frankly, it’s time for their ‘older’ fans to get a good treat as well: In-your-fucking-face metal, which certainly can’t be shoved inside a box anymore. Again I’ll say, sad to see this band go, they were awesome throughout all those years, and leave us behind with this excellent funeral album. I’m not sure about the rest of the members, but we’ll see what vocalist Ville Laihiala will bring us with his heavy/gothic band Poisonblack. As long as it kicks, Finnish metal keeps hailing down to the earth.

[This review was first published on the now defunct scandinavianmetal.info webzine]

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