Those who came into the realm of extreme music in the ’90s were thankful for labels like Century Media Records, which gave worldwide distribution to such a disparate and delightful horde of awesome, oftentimes challenging bands for our collective delectation. One of the most notable of these musical outfits, Sentenced began their life as a brutal Death Metal band way back in 1989 in the heart of frigid Lapland in a town called Oulu, Finland. Oulu is so far north, some unconfirmed sources have claimed Santa Claus has been seen buying reindeer feed there. All joking aside, the atmosphere of such a far northern outpost would come to define the essence of Sentenced’s entire career. Interminable winters beset by gloom and frost, fleeting summers giving way to swift, vivid autumns and the soothing balm of the bottle would become their hallmarks. This defiant melancholy, with its odes to suicide and sadness, was the one defining constant that survived each conspicuous, deliberate stylistic change the band underwent.
The early Death Metal gave way to 1995’s sterling, career crowning Amok. A transition album if there ever was one, it marked the departure of vocalist Taneli Jarva and heralded the arrival of Ville Laihiala, whose rough, yet goth-tinged, croon would signal a permanent metamorphosis into depressive Rock territories. As with most excursions into more commercial territory, Sentenced were embraced in some circles and despised in others. Despite it all, they mostly thrived in their new direction, culminating both it and their careers with their last recorded statement in this world, before a collective decision to disband put an end to their existence. The Funeral Album came out on May 31st, 2005, and Sentenced was finished as an active band on the 1st of October of that same year.
The decision to disband came as a surprise to most fans, but the passing of years revealed that founding guitarist Miika Tenkula was not a healthy young man, as he lost his battle with a congenital heart defect in 2009. The Funeral Album came out on the heels of the success of 2002’s The Cold White Light, and as Heavy Metal music enjoyed its post-millennial resurgence, it looked like Sentenced would enjoy prosperity and finally shut the mouths of critics who felt their music had grown too soft. How this all would have played out became irrelevant when the coffin lid closed and the midnight sun set for the last time. What we are left with as a swansong is The Funeral Album, and its legacy is a checkered one. In keeping with the effect these tragic Finns had on the Metal press, the album once more divided the masses. Accused of rushing the recording, resting on their laurels, and being altogether uninspired, Sentenced was also praised by many for further honing the Hard Rock drive they used to melt icy hearts on career highlight albums like Down (1996), Frozen (1998), and the aforesaid The Cold White Light (2002).
All things being equal, it is hard to argue with the first three songs on The Funeral Album. “May Today Become The Day” is a driving anthem of the sort that brings up the fists, charges up the crowd, and is reminiscent of the punchy songwriting that Ville Laihiala (vocals), Miika Tenkula (guitar), and Sami Lopakka (guitar), the longtime creative core of the band, had become known for. “Ever-Frost” has an anti-religious bite and super catchy chorus which showcases the best of Laihiala’s vocal talents. “We Are But Falling Leaves” harks back to the pervasive melancholy of Frozen (1998), and is instantly recognizable as the depressive Rock Sentenced do so well.
After this, the quality of the songs on the album vary somewhat, but this was nothing new and had begun to affect Sentenced since the Crimson record in 2000. Some unexpected moments wait for the listener, as the fifty-nine second instrumental “Where Waters Fall Frozen” is a brief nod to the band’s Death Metal roots. “Despair-ridden Hearts” begins with an excellent bit of harmonica, and is a well done ballad of utmost sadness. A song like this one shows a high degree of maturity from the group, with Laihiala showing how far he has come as a vocalist since his impassioned, yet labored performances on his first few go-rounds. The song picks up and rocks out, featuring some nice backing vocals, an acoustic sounding guitar arrangement, and some great solos. It is certainly a moment where one might wonder where they could have gone creatively had they continued.
“Vengeance Is Mine” suffers from some immature lyrics, but it is catchy and sounds both comfortable and familiar. This could be because it is very close to material from Frozen, which is not a bad thing. A lot of the mid to latter half of the album fails to make a massive impact on the listener, though, and songs like “Consider Us Dead,” “Lower The Flags,” and “Drain Me” plod just a bit too much, giving the impression that Sentenced was going through the motions a little bit on these compositions. Luckily, all did not get lost. The brief interlude “Karu” goes a long way in resetting the moribund atmosphere Sentenced is so good at creating, and it serves as a nice little segue into “End of the Road,” a slow act of desolation which shows a more experimental side to Sentenced. Laihiala’s voice sounds truly heart wrenching, and the brash Rock sections which rise up, triumphant from the funereal ashes in which the song dwells, are great. The well-placed children’s choir, which gives way to more interesting Hard Rock arrangements, float us into an excellent guitar solo section. True magnificence and a hell of a way to close out an album, in addition to a career that ended way too soon.
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