Dark, sleekly metallised hard rock. Melodic metal with Gothic overtones.
Call it what you will, one thing is clear, there's a lot more optimism in the Finnish metal psyche nowadays.
Maybe it's the result of seeing the international success enjoyed by HIM and 69 Eyes, but, judging by Entwine's sixth studio album, the suffocating blanket of melancholy that's usually thrown over Finnish metal has gone.
Certainly, the familiar, darkly downbeat undertow is ever present, but it pulls the music along now, instead of dragging it down.
With opener,
'Soul Sacrifice', that momentum takes the band's brand of contemporary music deep into progrock territory. It's a tense, brooding, primarily instrumental scene setter, as aggressive as anything the band have done previously.
'Strife' is a pulsing, melodic metal stomp, with steely riffs sparring relentlessly with hard punching rhythms.
On
'Dying Moan' the band sound tighter than a timelock. A wonderful track - a dark, sinewy drama, full of groundshaking rhythms; a lyrical journey into a world created by guilt and paranoia.
Everything else is simply a variation on the same themes, with the clear and unequivocal exception of
'Beautifully Confined' and
'Greed Of Mankind', either of which could have been the bonus track on any of Harem Scarem's last 3 albums. Isn't that Pete Lesperance on lead guitar on
'Beautifully Confined'?
Even when they lapse, and indulge in homogenised melodic / progmetal, like '
Lost In My Denial' and '
Hollow', the production ensures that there are numerous redeeming, ear catching features.
But when they're good they're outstanding.
The cranked up and electrifyingly melodic '
Dead By Silence' seizes the day as we head toward the back end of the album, with the immense, Paradise Lost-ish '
Say Goodbye' stacking up as a magnificently apposite closer.
Entwine's journey continues on an upward trajectory.
Written by
Brian Friday, April 24, 2009
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