Kill The Romance - Take Another Life

Published March 15 2007

*=Staff's pick	I'm Alive* Prey* Ghost White Coma Inner Cell Trespasser* Friend Pulse Of Negative Breath* Worldwide Destruction My Sweetest Enemy Dark Filth Water

Genre	Melodic Death Metal	Ville Hovi	Vocals
Tracks	11	Tomi Louma	Guitar
Runningtime	46 Min.	Anti Kokkonen	Guitar
Label	Locomotive Records	Raimo Posti	Bass
Release	23 March 2007	Mika Tanttu	Drums
Country	Finland	-	Keyboard
Similar artists	In Flames, Soilwork, Trivium, Children Of Bodom

Kill The Romance is a Finnish band that formed in 2004 and with Take Another Life, they release their first full-length album. Previously they have done some EP's and in early 2005 the band was chosen from over 150 unsigned bands to play in the Finnish Metal Expo happening. The band comes out as sometime absolutely furious on the album, basically the music is a blend of aggressive thrash and melodic death metal with the emphasis on melodic. I'm Alive, which opens the album, starts with full pace in an excellent thrash meets melodic death manor and after a furious start the song explodes into an ultra-melodic refrain with clear vocals.

The vocals shift from growls with the verses to clear and melodic vocals with the refrains, and Ville Hovi masters both techniques greatly. The growls could have been done with a darker and more powerful approach perhaps, but nevertheless he is a fully capable growler, way above average. With the clear vocals he possesses power as well as emotion and he somewhat has a resemblance with David Draiman of Disturbed.

With the parts consisting of thrash and death metal, their Nordic origin can be heard, but when they wander off in melodic and more balanced parts their sound is more of the American kind. In the song Trespasser, Kill The Romance show a more varied side and the sound of Trivium comes with an apparent resemblance. The Finns show a delicate side of how they are handling their instruments, but somehow it feels like it is done too much according to the instructional book. Guitar-leads and harmonies are done in an otmost tasteful way, but nevertheless it feels so standard.

The formula of fast and aggressive verses versus very melodic and catchy refrains is used to the absurd by Kill The Romance. More or less every song is built in this way, and even if this is most delightful in small doses, one wonders where the diversity is. Listen to two or three songs and this is absolutely great, but if you listen to more, the interest drops bit by bit as the album ticks away.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	4	7	7	4

Summary
6 chalices of 10 - Thomas