Sentenced -
The Funeral Album [2005]

The Dead March of the Victors

Should I mention it's never easy to state the value of Sentenced albums. But it's even more harder to speak about the album when you know it's the last album ever. Obviously I wanted to cry that it's a disaster, Sentenced is a great band and their last album is also great. Or should I try to forget that Sentenced is epic band and we're losing the era, and should I just try to listen to the album just as an album?

I ask so many questions, 'cos – honestly – if The Funeral Album wouldn't be the last album of Sentenced ever, I would criticize this piece of art a lot. But still I regret Sentenced is leaving, and I do appreciate the fact the band didn't give up but found motivation to record The Funeral Album and to say goodbye to the fans. Well, it's hard to judge, but I'll try to say some (hopefully) objective words about the cd.

The album is getting start from a track called May Today Become the Day. Energetic and forceful, this song is surely would be a good hit for future shows for many years. Almost the same we can say about next track Ever-Frost. Sounded like a typical north self-killers, the song has quite embarrassing lyrics – in a general sense, the world is dirty and the life is shit and only the guys from Sentenced are sweet, cute and almost perfect.

We Are But Falling Leaves is a beautiful ballade, also typical for Sentenced, depressive and a bit evil. This song is one of sensible decoration on the album, and the music is just good. But well, we remember much cooler ballades from these guys! A song Her Last Five Minutes is also kinda ballade, but quite weird. Lots of sound experiments make this song crumbly. Different parts of the song are cool, but you hardly can get the song in your mind from the beginning till the end.

Where Waters Fall Frozen looks like a joke, really. It's something between grind-core and music Sentenced played with Taneli Jarva the Great long-long time ago. And the length of the track is 59 sec. So, is it grind?

A new instrument for Sentenced – a brummeisen – makes us to pay attention to Despair-Ridden Hearts, a song with a beautiful guitar melody as well. And the next track is aggressive Vengeance is Mine, reminds Crimson album a lot. Choir of children sounds sarcastic in this kind of songs, and it's cool.

A Long Way to Nowhere opens the second part of the album, mostly dedicated to Sentenced leaving this futile world. And song Consider Us Dead is just great. This song should be written for this album, and this song fits the situation a lot. And yes, this is really good song – with beautiful melody and thrilling lyrics. And if I'd been asked to retell the plot, I would describe it as a conversation between three – drunk suicider, his alter ego and his gun. The bottle of home-brew is involved. And then Lower The Flags continues the item, the song is solemn, and there's no hysteria at all.

The very special song on the album is Drain Me. Should I say it sounds rude. Well, I bet male-listeners are excited a lot, but there's some female-listeners in the audience. Fairly the lyrics isn't black humor, it's just crudity. I mean, we all know most of the Sentenced guys have wives and children, and they don't look like misogynists, so what was the reason to rend the air I wonder. But… if to pretend I'm a unisex, I would admit this song is genius, really.

Weird acoustic track Karu forestalls the best and the main song on The Funeral Album – End of The Road. This song is obvious, you know. You feel it from the first sound till the last breath. This song is great. And the ultimate.

This is the end of Sentenced discography. Is this album bad or good you should decide yourself, 'cos you surely should buy it and listen to it carefully. To me from time to time this album sounds like the guys didn't really want to record it. But speaking from all the fans I have to say we are grateful to Sentenced they didn't give up and told us their last good bye. And – sure – this band is sentenced to our eternal love and respect. RIP.

Melamory