Sentenced
“The Cold White Light”
(Century Media)
Sentenced is a heavy gothic metal band in the vein of Moonspell, To Die For and Entwine. Insofar as this particular sub-genre of metal appeals to me, Sentenced displays very good compositional skills with emphasis on beautiful crescendos and nice musical bridges helping to bring a cohesion to each song by binding its more gothic passages with the outright rocking ones (which do outnumber the Goth influenced moments about three to one). This makes for well-rounded songs rather than disjointed odes of inter-genre incompetence that many bands shooting for stylistic crossbreeding often stumble through.
The vocalist utilizes his full alto range, sometimes going to low, but otherwise remaining self-disciplined. The guitarist does at times tend to shred a bit too much on the solos (compared to most bands he’s a fucking ascetic stoic) and this may be a problem for anyone more into the Gothic side of things than the metal and they may wish to avoid this album like a weekend get away at Metal Camp with Sebastian Bach.
This album might not be a bad buy for fans of the newer Metallica shit. There are elements of thrash metal’s pioneer’s latest works in some of the guitar licks and the drummer seems clearly influenced.
