By Martin Popoff
Gander about the web and you will find as many hot-under-the-collar opinions about Sentenced and their metal worthiness as there are people debating the band's old singer versus Ville. Add to that the wildly divergent reviews of the band's last album Crimson as well as - surprise - the same controversy surrounding their latest album, The Cold White Light, and you've got a bunch of frosty Finns that are causing more chatter than the bone-chilling winters from whence Sentenced sprang.
"Well, it didn't have bad reviews everywhere," correctly notes guitarist Sami Lopakka, with respect to Crimson. "There were different reactions to it. Now, when I look back at it, I kind of understand why some people didn't like it that much. Especially arrangement-wise, it was pretty dull. And we were... I wouldn't say that we were repeating the Frozen album or the Down album, but maybe the songs were too much alike on the album. And we definitely wanted to do things differently this time around. I think we've definitely moved forward from what people were complaining about (laughs)."
The Cold White Light most definitely swings the pendulum, but the key to the record's often mischievously nihilistic yet anthemic icebox rockers is the fact that the band knows their strengths, and can take such long-pondered and meticulously crafted characteristics to the edge of self-aware parody. There is fairly overt humour enclosed, as well as a residual, once-removed humour borne of existential hopelessness.
SENTENCED - Whisper To Me, O Death Page 2