You know how it goes with some albums: First you fall in love with them and years later they simply suck, just like some human relationships! Sentenced's 'Crimson' is one of those very few albums, that at first sucked, then years later I really got to like it. Quite a lot actually. My interest towards the band began to wane when 'Amok's (1995) successor 'Down' was released a year later, introducing the new vocalist Ville Laihiala. On that album he sounded like a baby Lemmy or something similarly weak, plus the band had chosen to enter more rocking spectrum of music, abandoning the metal stuff bit by bit.

In 2000, 'Crimson' was released, and is Mr. Laihiala's third Sentenced work. He sounded much better on 'Frozen' (1998) already, but here we hear some of his most virtuoso singing, and it sounds live. I remember when I first heard this album, it sounded a bit lame, both energy- and music-wise, but I really enjoyed the sound and the vocals. During their career, Sentenced moved from pure death metal to dark metal and by 'Crimson', they offered us rocking metal with dark vibes (not metallic rock, except for 'Home in Despair' and 'The River' probably). 'Bleed in My Arms's beginning (guys talking, hitting drumsticks etc.) creates live vibe, which is kinda relaxed, but still groovy and neck-snapping when needed. See, the band can be very modest at times, but also heavy and offensive as a beer bottle hitting your temporal. One thing making the band and their music so special is that, that they sound Sentenced, even though they are more melodic here than ever before. The band move from seriously awesome metal guitar melodies to campfire mood (there's quite a bit of acoustic guitars, sometimes with electric ones), and change from heavy to melancholic in a sec. At times this sounds more doomy than many a doom metal album, to tell the truth, because there is so fucking thick atmosphere on this album. Some stupid and uninterested person could say that this sound like HIM, but seriously it does not, and that way it would be way too easy to spoil this album with wrong information. But, I believe this wouldn't sound too bad in the ears of some HIM fan, though. The quality of the songs alternate a bit, but there is no fillers to be found (I think that silence after the last song is caused by the multimedia, which is the MPEG video for 'Killing Me Killing You', even though there's some speaking towards the ending to be heard). 'Crimson' flows on well, all the various elements are well placed during the album. Sound-wise this is awesome: Live vibe mixed with total professionalism. Great work by Hiili Hiilesmaa and Ahti Kortelainen.

So, it's pretty hard to write about how the music sounds like. Maybe "Finnish" would be another good word to describe it all. After all, the lyrics tell about all things not nice. Heartache, suicide, self-pity, booze, the things we Finns know too well. At least morning after... But I must say, that the lyrics are pretty good when thinking about how shitty Finns can write sometimes. If 'Crimson's musical serving if many-faceted, so is the Niklas Sundin artwork.

For a long time, 'Crimson' was Sentenced's worst album in my ears. I'm thankful to myself for keeping it, because I had the chance to get to know it for the second time. For my big surprise, this second time proved to be better, much better. This album offers good songs well executed. There's bleak mood (positive way) that's rarely achieved by any band, and even more rarely it's this rocking! This, my friends, was Sentenced, with their veins wide open.

Rating: 8- (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
03/16/2008 13:44