The Cold White Light

Sentenced is one of those bands that never really got the attention they deserved. The Finns' strong aversion to life on the road and reserved nature held back their success, leaving one to wonder what could have been. Towards the end of their career, they released this absolute beauty of an album, The Cold White Light.

Never a group to release the same album twice, Sentenced tended to change its sound on every record, beginning as a death metal band and reaching the end of their evolution with The Cold White Light, their penultimate album (The Funeral Album concluded their career with more of a 'down the middle' approach). It's immediately apparent that this is a far more natural successor to 1998's Frozen than actual follow-up Crimson.

To include the word 'cold' in the title of the album is appropriate, as Hiili Hiilesmaa's crystalline production very much invokes the sensation of a cold, dark winter's night lit only by moon and stars. The interplay between guitarists Miika Tenkula and Sami Lopakka is sublime here, with clean guitar melodies and arpeggiated chords tending to be the central focus, rather than traditional metal guitar riffs. Tenkula, in particular, really shines here, laying down incredible guitar solo after incredible guitar solo, blending technique with very natural style, flair and emotion. His lead work on the likes of 'Cross My Heart and Hope to Die', 'Brief is the Light' and 'Aika Multaa Muistot (Everything is Nothing)' exemplifies why he is (or, rather sadly, 'was') quite possibly the most underrated guitarist in metal. The rhythm section of Sami Kukkohovi and Vesa Ranta rarely do anything flashy or spectacular, but apply their playing to best compliment the music, exactly what is required for this kind of sub-genre.

Frontman Ville Laihiala delivers possibly his most confident performance behind the mic for Sentenced. Having been a tad one-dimensional early in his Sentenced career, he improved his singing as his tenure in the band progressed and it shows here. Laihiala does a fine job at conveying the range of emotions required, whether it be barking, crooning or singing more softly, and even if he was never the greatest vocalist in the world, he was everything Sentenced needed him to be.

Of course, all the above would mean little were the songs themselves not up to standard, but the songcraft is particularly strong on The Cold White Light. Tenkula, once again taking on the lion's share of the songwriting duties, already had an impressive track record in the field, but he outdoes anything he did previously here. Right from the instrumental intro, into brilliant opener 'Cross My Heart and Hope to Die' right through to the equally-strong and emotional finisher, 'No-One There', with the album's rating taking a hit of one solitary point thanks to the appallingly-loud bird noise freakout in the last ten seconds of the latter track (I'd suggest pressing the 'stop' button ten seconds before the track ends; the music is done by then, anyway). The hooks are here, there and everywhere, whether it be the guitar melodies or the chorus lines.

Lopakka, as usual penning the majority of the lyrics, does a fine job at channeling the bleak moroseness typical of the Finns, this time with a greater sense of self-deprecation, exemplified best by 'Excuse Me While I Kill Myself', a title that can only be described as both brilliant and ridiculous at the same time, tongue firmly in cheek or no. But perhaps the best set of lyrics comes from one of Laihiala's two compositional efforts, the aforementioned 'Aika Multaa Muistot (Everything Is Nothing)', a brutally honest expression of depression and regret.

Ultimately, The Cold White Light is an excellent album, the result of a wonderfully talented band that tended to get stronger with each release. This is essential listening for gothic metal/rock fans.

Recommended tracks - 'Cross My Heart and Hope to Die', 'Neverlasting', 'Aika Multaa Muistot (Everything is Nothing)', 'No-One There'

The Cold White Light, a.k.a. 'The Blue One' was a nice pivot from the dregs of Crimson, and in fact I'd say even the first five minutes of this album were more memorable than its predecessor in its entirety. Not that this is necessarily one of the stronger titles in the Finns' catalogue, but it benefits from really amazing production that gives the instruments more depth and punch than before, and the songs, while still exceedingly simple, are a lot moodier and catchier. It really seemed around this time that Sentenced were running nose to nose with other Gothic rock and metal bands from their scene like H.I.M., Charon, To/Die/For and Entwine, so you definitely hear a bit of that starting to rub off in Ville's patterns, especially the H.I.M., but at the same time, it adds a little more to his performance, makes it slightly more interesting.

There are points here, like the intro to "Brief is the Light", which are clearly among their most poppy and friendly, but at least they seem like they are headed towards something greater, which is not something I felt myself saying much with the prior album. When they arrive, you often get choruses, like to that song or "Neverlasting" or "Blood & Tears" which are even worthy of appearing on an album like Frozen. The riffs are drawn from the typical bag they'd been using since the late 90s, but there is a little fire lit under them and the more robust production to this album makes even the plainer material have more of an impact. The leads are always effective, if once again simple, and it's arguably Ville's strongest vocal performance, even if he doesn't land lines as sticky as some he had on Down. He is a natural at the dominant Goth rock element, and you could almost interchange him with that other Ville (Valo), who became more popular because of that band's woozy Romanti-Goth marketing and Bam Margera promotions.

In summary, The Cold White Light is what Crimson should have sounded like, it's like they emerged from the bar on a frosty Finnish winter day, and got caught in the glare off the trees and lakes, and remembered that they were once a pretty damn good band...and not even that long ago! It's nothing too special, and there are only 2-3 songs I really find myself returning to on a normal basis, but you could also spin the entire album and feel that it's consistent enough to leave an impact. For a penultimate studio album, it seems like the band had come to its senses and was steering back in the right direction, but taking their time to arrive.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Finland’s Sentenced had quite a run after ditching the last remnants of their death metal past and continuing as more of a heavy gothic rock/metal outfit, with very good and occasionally even excellent records like Down, Frozen or The Cold White Light attracting a dedicated fanbase and establishing the band as a constant force to be reckoned with. Alas, their streak of success was rather short-lived as the largely mediocre Funeral Album turned out to be their premature swansong. In contrast, their penultimate full-length, the aforementioned The Cold White Light, showed a band gathering all their strength and focused on putting together one of the strongest outputs of their career.

Sentenced started out as a more or less traditional death metal outfit before entering a transitional phase with Amok, but what they accomplished in the roughly ten years starting with Down and ending with The Funeral Album is no small feat. After all, it’s not that easy to forge emotive, melancholic, gothic-influenced heavy rock without coming across as a bunch of whiny, self-pitying shoegazers. Sentenced avoided that pitfall by infusing their music with just enough self-deprecating black humor, alcohol-fueled ferociousness and unapologetic badassery. The Cold White Light is the perfect example, as even in its mellowest moments it still comes up with enough balls to never devolve into an involuntary self-parody.

The production is a major reason for The Cold White Light’s rough edge as the guitars are kicked into overdrive here, generally sounding pretty vicious and giving the riffs some unexpected heft. This is more than welcome, particularly after the guitars sounded quite dull and muddy on an otherwise excellent record like Frozen. The opening trio (not counting the brief intro) of "Cross My Heart and Hope to Die," "Brief Is the Light" and "Neverlasting" sees guitarists Miika Tenkula and Sami Lopakka abusing their six-strings with reckless abandon, and the closing section of "Aika multaa muistot (Everything Is Nothing)"—the one starting with that "I'll see you all go down and witness your demise" line—hits home like a sledge hammer. The chords and riffs may be simple, but who cares when they are this effective.

Speaking of "Neverlasting," this is easily the most hard-hitting and blustering track on The Cold White Light, sweeping across the northern tundra with unrelenting force and punk-like energy. The first half of the album is generally the heavier one, culminating in the trademark tongue-in-cheek banger that is "Excuse Me While I Kill Myself." Then again, as hilarious as the title is, the lyrics are in fact quite grim, with lead singer Ville Laihiala—who gives a great vocal performance on this song and all the others—proclaiming his intention to blow his brains onto the wall and whatnot. Yes, Sentenced were a merry and life-affirming bunch indeed.

The second half of the album is the more solemn one, even though hard-rocking cuts like "Blood & Tears" or "You Are the One" are no slouches either and pretty effective in their own right. "The Luxury of a Grave" once more shows off the band’s trademark sense of twisted humor ("oh no, a coffin would be way too nice / oh no, a see-through plastic bag will do just fine"), whereas "Guilt and Regret" perfectly captures the feeling of waking up hungover and with serious memory gaps after a long night of imbibing irresponsible quantities of liquor and beer. As most of us probably know, the worst part of getting hammered usually isn’t the things you actually did the night before, but the morning after bringing horrific images of the terrible things you might have done but just can’t remember. In that regard, they might as well have called this track "The Blackout Song." By contrast, the sorrowful "No One There" is the longest track on offer, ending things on a more serious and yearning note.

Sentenced were definitely on a roll in the late 1990s and early 2000s and The Cold White Light might just be their crowning achievement. The album isn’t perfect, with the first half somewhat outshining the second and the band performing just a bit sloppily in some parts, but the overall atmosphere of sullen melancholy, youthful boisterousness and alcohol-infused mayhem is conveyed really well. Crack open a beer or two, set volume to ten, sing and rock along and simply enjoy!

Choicest cuts: Cross My Heart and Hope to Die, Neverlasting, Excuse Me While I Kill Myself, You Are the One, Guilt and Regret

Pros:
– wistful and moody, yet plenty aggressive
– badass guitars and excellent vocals
– solid production
– serious "hit" factor
– lyrics with a nice sense of humor
– my 100th MA review, so this cannot possibly suck

Cons:
– album’s first half generally stronger than the second
– another kick-ass headbanger like "Neverlasting" would have been nice
– some generous helpings of cheese

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 points

Today it's Jean Sibelius Day, the grandest of Finnish composers, who helped Finland to create its national identity. It is also the day of Finnish music in general. I was thinking of writing a review today for something Finnish and had thought about this for years and years:

Sentenced from Northern Finland; one of the less happy bunch of fellas who were around from 1989 to 2005. They never hit any big success, but after they were gone. After their demise everybody's most loved Finnish band were Sentenced. To me, this is Sentenced's best album together with 1995 platter, the third one, 'Amok'.

The band had dropped almost all of their death metal trait when in 1996 they released the 4th full-length album 'Down'. Already with 'Amok' they started to broaden their sound with more rocking stuff, and 'The Cold White Light' is the zenith of that. Generally, this is one of the leading albums of favourite Finnish frame of mind: Gloominess.

Here, gritty rock and heavy metal are joined by gloom-schlager (nowadays e.g. Viikate are known for that). While it can be joyous in way of blackest humour, it always has that fucking dark cloud hanging over, or a noose swaying away to the beat. I know some people cannot stand this murky vibe, but some of us can be entertained by it; in the end, everybody dies, so why not enjoy it while it's possible?!

Opening with absolutely beautiful sounds of Finnish nature, acoustic guitar begins to play foreboding melody of 'Konevitsan kirkonkellot', a traditional Karelian folk song, it soon turns into heavy-as-hell doom rendition of the named song. It was a moment of "what this time, then???" Yep, that gloom-schlager driven rocking heavy metal; which I cannot put under gothic metal, really. Melancholic melodies, sometimes non-distorted and therefore reminding of Finnish zither, and big wall of torrential rhythm guitars, which are often open stringed. Surely there's palm-muted rhythms heard, but Sentenced were known for this looser style. It's often spiced with keyboards or piano, which are kept in the background. The song-writing is rather straight, more rock-based than anything else, and mostly faster rocking explosions, with a couple slower murky pieces. It's definitely not one-sided.

This is the fourth Sentenced album with Ville Laihiala on vocals, and he had grown into a fantastic exponent. His voice is deep, warm and somewhat battle-worn, which simply made this more convincing. All vocals are clean with some rasp in them. Another highly characteristic element is Miika Tenkula's memorable and absolutely original guitar solos. He composed most of the material, with some provided by other guitarist Sami Lopakka and Laihiala. Sturdy and solid, rocking backbone (no double kick drums here, sorry) was created by bassist Sami Kukkohvi and drummer Vesa Ranta (one of three forming members of the band, together with guitarists).

The lyrics mostly deal with death or unwanted life, with one love song (that was left to bands influenced, at least partly, by Sentenced, such as HIM, Charon and countless more). They are written in unique style, some very basic, but some poetry-worthy. Even though his cover is somewhat bland here, the booklet is filled with great photography by Vesa Ranta.

The album is loaded with huge amount of mood and fantastic melodiousness. That is, if you enjoy Finnish stuff. This sounds unique, and the punchy Hiili Hiilesmaa production strengthens it even further. 'The Cold White Light' was one of my favourites from these Northernmost Killers when it came out, and still is. If that's not a sign of a fine album, then what is? Essential Finnish metal music here.

(Originally written for ArchaicMetallurgy.com)

I always find Sentenced gothic metal albums solid. Albums like "Down," and "Frozen" were decent albums with good combination of heavy metal of a small bit of goth influences. Not to say Sentenced are not gothic metal they're one of the big Finnish gothic metal bands that's not HIM. I had trouble finding out which Sentenced album to listen to next, because I was concerned that my reaction to their discography would turn out like how I feel with Paradise Lost and Katatonia's gothic metal albums. I randomly started listening to "The Cold White Light" because I feel like I haven't heard enough Sentenced, and I haven't listened to them in a while. Upon listening to this album compared to the previous albums I have heard, "The Cold White Light" is a superior album. In this album I feel that Sentenced really did something well by having that foreign atmospheric sound that made them stand out from other Finnish metal bands. It was an album that made me want to go back to listening to Sentenced again and dig more into other albums I still have yet to hear.

Compared to their previous albums, "The Cold White Light" is more melodic. It has great gritty singing from Ville Laihala for which he is able to still attain that distinct style heard in previous albums, but made it more melodic on this album and more melodic than previous albums as well. It adds sensitive guitar melodies, great drumming, and some beautiful keyboards. Sentenced use of keyboards/piano on this album is also not overused as much, and still has some really lovely parts. Nothing seemed too sensitive on this album, its atmosphere heard on this album is really great. The music really hit me, and definitely has better music than in their previous albums.

What makes Sentenced stand out from every gothic metal band I have heard is their lyrics. Sentenced talked about suicide, but more about suicide influenced through love and it really shows in "The Cold White Light." It is something I never really noticed until recently when I looked into this album, but it is definitely unique. From Songs like "Cross My Heart and Hope to Die," "Brief is the Light," and "Excuse Me While I Kill Myself" show that depressing romantic side of Sentenced music unlike its previous releases. The lyrics are skillful though sometimes it can be a little whiny concerning what the suicidal lyrics are about. With catchy music added in with these lyrics make "The Cold White Light" great.

Sentenced has had some solid records in the past in my opinion, but "The Cold White Light" stands as their best work. The music don't feel forced or formulaic and it definitely has some passion and definitely makes Sentenced unique from a lot of their Finnish Contemporaries. Though it has been a while since I listened to a lot of Sentenced music, but this is the album I always go to whenever I want to listen to Sentenced. I say its worth checking out and a good alternative to the Peaceville three.

...giving the penultimate Sentenced album after about one and a half years of neglect another decent listen and maybe another chance. The unsolved death case of Miika Tenkula (guitarist and song writer) didn't strike me that much, although I feel sorry for the poor guy. He was the mastermind behind Sentenced and did most (if not all) of the songwriting. Like some bands, Sentenced have a very colorful background, starting with old-school oriented death metal (Shadows from the past), continuing with a more "blackish" sound on "North from here", attempting a more melodic approach on "Amok" and then taking that road to find their true identity, with continuous polishing from album to album.

"The Cold White Light" is their last album before their departure with their "Funeral Album" where they really start to show where they stand, namely on a rickety ladder representing a jumble out of straightforward song progression, great and sentimental guitar soli, but at the same time inconsistent lyrical conception and whiny, sometimes even weepingly vocal executions.

The first thing noticeable here is the clear and polished sound and the complete lack of harsh vocal work. Guitars are tuned regularly on E (but some songs are also downtuned to D) and we have both roaring amplified distortion, as well as clean, slow parts to go with the whole sorrow thing. The arrangement of pianos and strings into the clean guitar parts is done properly, without sounding too limp or boring. Atmosphere is certainly created well and the songs do not possess any alienated parts or annoying bridges. You can actually hear every instrument without any quality problems. Bass always seems to be an issue for a lot of releases in general, but on this one the bass (together with the drums) is very well audible (very dominant on "Neverlasting"). All in all the sound is representative for Finnish heavy metal, itself being very melodic.

The foundation of this album is a sort of thread that tries to direct through a blend of different emotions experienced by the protagonist of every song. The intro (a traditional Finnish song "Konevitsan Kirkonkello") suggests the following album to be sorrowful, majestic while at the same time going in-depth into human emotion. Instead we get a mixture out of suicidal emotions, apathetic dispositions and what seems to be the most paradox part of it all, extremely exaggerative hope. The real conflict in this album lies within the dithering flood of positive and negative emotions at the same time. There is little coherency on the album, viewed upon as a whole. While neither part is a bad approach to music generally, if executed well enough and represented properly both emotional extremes can make great albums. Be it aggression, sorrow, melancholy, despair, etc. the formula is most of the time pretty clear. Well, not on this one. It is as if they just couldn't make up their minds or it wasn't intended. Either way it's contradictory and bad. We are suggested to "Hear these words I say - make the most out of your day" or "Carpe diem, seize the day before your life fades away" or even very direct "take my hand and I'll lead you astray for it's the only way", while at the same time "- I'll kill myself I'll blow my brains onto the wall!" or "Just dump my foul remains on some near-by field - I don't deserve a grave". Now that is a quite strange constellation, if you ask me. Of course every song can be interpreted as a single entity, having nothing to do with each other, but still there is that fact, that the same guy has made himself and his voice immortal on this release, and there still is some connection (weaker or stronger) between the songs.

Of course Sentenced have always tried to create a contrast between lyrics and music, as Ville explains in an interview, but frankly, they blew it on this record. The fine difference between suicide out of self-pity and suicide as a cynical theme can be witnessed by comparing "Cross my heart and hope to die" or "The luxury of a grave" and "Excuse me while I kill myself". You will get the idea pretty fast by reading those specific lyrics.

Take all that lyrical incoherency and throw Mr. Ville Laihiala into the pond and it really gets pitiful. The vocal delivery from this man started very good on "Down" and "Frozen" where he didn't sound like an emo kid. But with time, he developoed his own... let's just call it "thing". This "thing" is equivalent with what teenage girls today would call "sweet" and "sexy", screeching in the front row of a concert after waiting for hours, that they love him (want to engage in sexual intercourse with him) or whatever. In other words: he is pop, or even emo, which is worse, but I do not have to elaborate that.

Final words: Ignore Ville in combination with some of the lyrics and this might actually be appealing to one or the other.

This shouldn't be as good as it is. This isn't a Metal album in the least. This is straight up Goth-Rock and it’s incredible. There is a little bit of Metal in a few places but it’s apparent that they were done with this genera of music. All in all, this would have been an appropriate "final album" from one of the most (if not the most) depressing band of all time.

The production is very good, the instruments are tight and the music flows. The guitars are very moody, using even more of their trademarked melancholic harmonies. There is virtually no palm-muting on this recording which is a shock to someone who has only heard the bands previous works. The solos (though few in number) are complex and emotional. The atmosphere the rhythm guitar provides only adds to the audio misery that these guys are famous for.

The bass follows the guitars and is more often then not buried in the mix. The drums are standard for the course but effective all the same. The vocals follow the tradition of 'Frozen' in that while they're very clean, but there is a lot of rasp in the singers’ voice, more so than on 'Crimson'.

The music is very depressing but in the bands signature fashion its also very bouncy. Sentenced was one of the few bands that could sing about slitting your wrists and make you think that they were singing about a party, just by the up-tempo feel of the instruments. The band also pokes fun at themselves with the track "Excuse Me While I Kill Myself". This song is also the only "true" Metal song on the entire album, containing 90% of the crunch that their older material contained.

This album is drenched in life taking atmosphere. The songs are mostly moderate in tempo and delivery. This is just a beautiful CD for all intents and purposes. You can head bang and contemplate suicide at the same time (neat trick). This should have been the last album by these Finnish gods of sorrow, but alas they left us with the shitty 'Funeral Album'. Thankfully, this album as well as their past efforts, is strong enough to ignore their last release.

Sentenced – The Cold White Light



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*Warning*

This is simple music. If you are looking for shredding, interesting time signatures, high speed riffing or diverse song structures you’re looking at the wrong band.

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This is basically the pop band of metal. The emotional rock band that provides us metalheads the songs we share with our girlfriends. The band that we use to feel connected with the music when feeling depressed. And accept it, we all feel those moments some time, and listening to Necrophagist, Darkthrone or Meshuggah doesn’t suit such moments at all. Liking bands depends on your mood. If you’re in for technicallity, Necrophagist or Cryptopsy is probably the best choice. For anger bands such as Dark Angel or any other thrash metal band is perfect. And you probably already know it, but I will stick it into your head one more time: Sentenced has the music that is used best when feeling emotional, whether it be in love or depressed.

The connection between depression and love is of course weird, but Sentenced uses it well. Excuse Me While I’m Killing Myself is a song about suicide (no really...), while You Are the One is about pure love (NO REALLY...). On this way, Sentenced switches of between sad and uplifting songs. This is all composed with the typical instruments found in a doom metal band. And as I said before, no instrument is anything close to technical. All the songs depend on the catchiness and the pure (also simple) emotion the songs provide. Without Ville Laihiala (the vocalist) the songs would never achieve such a good emotional status. His voice is clean with some heat in it (raspy singing) and sounds pained but hopeful. It suites the songs so incredibly well, without him the tracklist would be decent at best.

Although there are some upbeat moments, most of the songs are relatively slow compared to other metal bands. Not as slow as the usual doom/sludge metal band, but more like the power ballad speed. The songs usually start out with melancholic guitar effect, to go right into the verses, which in turn go right into the choruses. It’s as standard as it can be, but it works. You Are the One, for example, is one of music’s most beautiful creations, but also just as simple. Although the lyrics are somewhat linair (“you are the light at the end of the tunnel”), it works as the perfect love song. Brief is the Light, for example, on the other hand is very melancholic and depressed. At last, No One There makes up for a perfect combination of those two.

So If you are in for some simple emotional music, give it a change. This album is perfect in that area. If you’re in for other music, stay away from it. It’s as simple as it can be. And whatever you may be for person, we will al be depressed or in love sometimes. The three best tracks on this album are: No One There, You Are the One and Brief is the Light.

Yes, this is in my opinion Sentenced at their very best. This album has everything you could possibly want in a doom-influenced Sentenced album. This is also the record where Ville Laihialas voice does itself justice. Before this one, he had a weird, almost disturbing, howling roar to his voice which has fortunately disappeared. He really reached new standards here, as did the rest of the band. This is by no way related to “Crimson”, their previous record. “Crimson” was kind of boring and bland, mainly because of the little variation in song material, something they’ve managed to avoid here.

The tracks differ from each other, and it’s weird, but almost all of them are very good. We have “Cross my heart…” which is a slower, suicidal story with great melody. “Brief is the Light” features a speedy chorus with aggressive overtone, “Excuse me while…” which is very catchy, “The Luxury of a Grave”, a fast mashing moshfest & the closer “No One There”, the ballad-like depression turned into a splendid tune.
“Aika multaa muistot” is the only track which lets me a little bit down, because it’s simply structured and varies very little.

They’ve really gone for the whole feeling here, without concentrating too much on making it sound sad, and that is where they hit the right spot. It still sounds pretty sad, but with a kind of catchiness to it. The whole production along with the mix is satisfying at best. It doesn’t sound too clear at times, nor does it fit this type of music, but at least it’s an improvement over “Crimson” (not just soundwise). Aside from the production I recommend this warmly to all fans of this type of music.

A lot of people whine about this album being a bunch of sissy ballads. Well it is, but I like those ballads. The songs are very atmospheric and solid. This album kind of reminds me of Metallica's albums where they went soft. The difference is that soft Sentenced just sounds better than soft Metallica, the music seems more sincere, even though Sentenced is known for being anti-downloading like Metallica. Theres deeper meanings to these songs that made me question things in life.

The song blood and tears says "What is it that we're struggling for? I don't quite see it anymore, Life kicks us in the teeth, Yet something makes us crawl back for more". It's so true about life and this is coming from a metal band going soft, wow. Yeah, it sounds cliche, all those sayings, but still, I couldn't put those words better myself.

Theres a humorous tone in one song, "Excuse Me While I Kill Myself", it's about some guy telling people to fuck off and blows his own head off. Sentenced was never really taken seriously when they did songs about suicide. This song is like the comic relief from all the more serious straight face songs which have their own beauty.

I don't see whats so wrong with this album, a band makes some catchy music that actually has some interesting lyrics for a change then it gets hated on. I've heard all their other albums, it was alright, but this one I actually went out and bought. I'll give this album a lot of credit, those melodic choruses sometimes play in my head in the middle of the day, very catchy and infectious.

Good old hard rock, I wouldn't conside anything to be pure metal here but there still are those solos.

It gets some points off because at the end of the album, some weird loud owl hooting came up and got hell of annoying, I don't think that was neccesary, why was it even there?

Beginning life as a Death Metal outfit, Sentenced ventured into the risky world of experimentation (much like fellow countrymen Amorphis) and released two good "classic" metal albums in "Amok" and "Down". Continuing on that road, they adopted a more Goth-rock sound on subsequent releases, finally bringing us to "The Cold White Light" - probably their most accessible album to date. While maintaining an overall somber mood and atmosphere that departs very little from their previous two releases, "The Cold White Light" is nonetheless quite varied in the delivery of Sentenced's trademark bleak emotions.

"Excuse Me While I Kill Myself", "Neverlasting", and "Blood & Tears" are all similar in tempo and style: solid rockers with catchy choruses and memorable hooks built on Sami Kukkohovi's bass driving the mood home. The melodies come across as upbeat, with the growling bass giving just a hint of a sinister undertone, even as the songs dwell on the dark subject matter of death , hopelessness and suicide. "You Are The One" stands apart from the rest of the album as it is a song of hope, and in fact is a love song that is written quite well. The catchy hooks and, on occasion, crushing groove make this a highlight of the album. "Guilt And Regret" is an attempt at a dark power ballad, but unfortunately comes off as cheese. Ville Laihiala's voice is, on a mjority of the album, a good fit for the depressed atmosphere created by the music. His vocal melodies are strong, and make up a big portion of the success of the album, but here it seems forced and out of place. Wrapping up the disc is "No One There", a very powerful tune that envelops you in a feeling of despair from start to finish. The keyboards lend just the right amount of atmosphere here, helping draw you in and making this my favorite track on the album - though I could do without the death-cries of loons blasting from my headphones.

Fans of Sentenced will know what to expect from "The Cold White Light", as no new direction is taken on this release. In fact, some may be disappointed by that fact though I think this is a solid work of rock. For those not familiar with the band, this album will not disappoint if you're partial to atmospheric Goth/Doom/Rock that is dark and melodic.

(Review from http://www.harvestmoonmusic.com)

While the first listens clearly show that there has been some change from utterly boring Crimson I wouldn't call that change development of any kind. It's more like regression, going back to more straightforward hard rock/metal like it was on Down and Frozen (while Crimson was slower and a bit darker).

However, Cold White Light fails to catch the "thing" that makes Down and Frozen quite decent and even good metallic rock albums. I keep pondering what is the reason that makes this so different(in non-good way) and what comes to my mind is that there isn't much variety on the Cold White Light. It's like they have done the same song all over the album.

Some songs have a bit of the clue. Few of the catchy choruses do you what a catchy chorus should do. Keep rolling around in your head for quite alot time. Nice example of that is the chorus to "Excuse me While I Kill Myself". That song also flashes the weird sense of humour these boys are known of and makes it to the best songs on the album.
It is a bit off-topic but as I've seen them playing some of these songs live it seems that the material actually works better with band on stage.

So no high points for Sentenced now but try out the album. It's not completely hopeless.

I fancy myself a pretty big Sentenced fan... every album I've heard from them (with the exception of the boring Shadows of the Past) is top notch melodic metal. In that respect, the Cold White Light is no different, although I consider it a step back.

Coming to the forefront are the band's 80s goth rock influences (don't tell me you can't hear any Cure in Guilt and Regret), which have gradually proliferated over the course of their career. When I heard Cold White Light being touted as a return to the more aggressive style of albums like Down, my (as well as many other fans I assume) fingers were crossed. I don't know what the critics were smoking, because there are only two songs: Neverlasting and Luxury of a Grave (damn good songs, might i add) that could be misconstrued as more aggressive.

I like the mellow shit, but there is an abundance of it here, and songs like Everything is Nothing put me to sleep. This is coming from a guy who LOVES Crimson. Not to say that I don't dig it... there's plenty excellent songs here, but it doesn't own me the way Crimson and Down do.

Standout tracks: Luxury of a Grave, Neverlasting (my fav), Brief is the Light, Excuse Me While I Kill Myself.