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Sentenced - Crimson

2000 Century Media Records :: Reviewed by rofreason on 2005-07-08

The other night, a friend of mine asked me to play him some older Bolt Thrower, saying that he wanted to hear somethign of theirs that sounded a little different. I just kinda laughed and then proceeded to throw on ...For Victory and The Fourth Crusade back to back. He got the point. Bolt Thrower is a band with whom you can feel secure in expecting an album which hasn't strayed too far from their initial intent. There aren't too many bands around that make you feel that way, but Sentenced is now one of them. Now releasing a fourth album in their "suicidal" style (no, not Cyco Mike), Crimson is more of the same, depressing, sickly sweet sounds of blood and alcohol. The term "Safe as Milk" comes to mind here, for Sentenced chose to keep the formula going, retaining the guitar sound, the almost pop metal vocals, the driving grooves, the lyrical themes. And why shouldn't they, the formula works, and there are much worse out there. So, it's a good album, but like their last opus Frozen, it's not great the way that either Down or Amok are. The fault of this may lie with repetition, or the fact that the sound on Amok was something new, and the addition of Ville Laihiala on vocals added another element to Down. There are some really strong tracks here, such as Broken, which just rage with emotion, but I'm just not as convinced as I once was. Maybe I'm just at a better place in my life. Chalk Crimson up as another strong new era Sentenced release, but aimed for a different type of person than the average metalhead, in my opinion.