Sentenced - Down
Review: Sentenced, claiming to be "tired" of death metal stylings, have progressively unravelled their death metal core into more conventional rock-metal, leaving behind the chaos that made their melodies exceptional and slowly losing themselves to the emotional overload of modern society. In the absence of the nihilistic violence of their classic "North From Here" their "evolutionary" style has slowly moved closer and closer toward a mainstream version of emotion, tuned on a fundamentally inherent depression which is not native to human hearts.
Although each tactical piece of this is executed well and this is some of the most varied heavy metal in this style to come about in the last five years, it remains simple music that does not advance the cause of metal and allows this band to regress from accomplishment to emulation. We the listeners can see the tortured fragments of a heavy metal dream beneath this aesthetic of misery but mostly feel the victimlike appeal of its easy emotional answer to hopelessness and in horror at this cop out, pull away.