Entwine - Fatal Design

*=Staff's pick	Fatal Design* Chameleon Halo* Out Of You Surrender* Oblivion Twisted Insomniac My Serenity Break Me* Curtained Life

Genre	Gothic Metal	Mika Tauriainen	Vocals
Tracks	10	Tom Mikkola	Guitar
Runningtime	42 Min.	Jaani Kähkönen	Guitar
Label	Spikefarm	Joni Miettinen	Bass
Release	28 Aug. 2006	Aksu Hanttu	Drums
Country	Finland	Riitta Heikkonen	Keyboards
Similar artists	Sentenced, HIM, Charon

Entwine's history hails back to 1995 when they took their first steps in the musical business. They started out as a death metal band but felt early that it was a limited genre that imposed on their creativity. Slowly they turned more and more melodic and when they recorded their first demo in 1997 the death metal had evolved into gothic metal.

Fatal Design is Entwine's fifth album and even if I've heard a lot of songs from the band earlier this is the first album I'm listening to in its entirety. The impressions I got from my prior explorations of the band was that it was quite decent but not good enough to encourage further investigations. Maybe that is why I'm sitting here quite surprised because this is way better than just decent. The title track opens the album in good fashion with efficient and melodic guitars in front of the sonic landscape. A great beginning that gets even better when Chameleon Halo is kicking in. This one is extremely addictive with a chorus that reaches inside the depths of me, absolutely brilliant! After this the quality level of the songs takes a rollercoaster ride and differs between decent and great. Surrender was chosen to be released as a single from the album and even if it's one of the best tracks my pick would definitely be Break Me. A calm verse with intriguing arrangements paves the way for the catchy refrain that with the right promotion could have been a hit song.

Entwines brand of gothic metal is guitar driven, very melodic and passionate. Mika's vocals is confident, enjoyable and definitely one of the band's strongest assets. Gothic metal from Finland isn't perhaps the most original and exciting thing you can find out there today but Entwine has an own identity and I really like what they are offering here. By far the best I've heard from the band and I will definitely follow them closer from now on. If they manage to deliver an album that is a bit more even next time they might be on to something big.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	8	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Hawk