Norther - Till Death Unites Us

*=Staff's pick	Throwing My Life Away* Drowning Norther Everything Evil Ladies Omen Scream* Fuck You Alone in the End Die Wasted Years The End Of Our Lives*

Genre	Metal	P. Lindroos/K. Ranta	Vocals
Tracks	12	Petri Lindroos	Guitar
Runningtime	46Min.	Kristian Ranta	Guitar
Label	Spinefarm	Jukka Koskinen	Bass
Release	25 Jan. 2006	Heikki Saari	Drums
Country	Finland	Tuomas Planman	Keyboards
Similar artists	---

With their new and 4th full length album, the finnish band Norther takes a step back to a more raw and less melodic approach. Perhaps a healthy choice both for the band and for the fans to try to change things a bit, but unfortunatly this does not work out very well. It is a tiny bit more technical at times now and more thrashy. The tempo is significantly slower, it is mainly midtempo half-thrash with a typical melancholic "finnish feeling" over the atmosphere.

It is quite monotone at times, both riff-wise and in the vocal area. The reason to why I previously have and still are prefering Children Of Bodom among the finnish bands in this genre is the lack of clear and distinct melodies in Northers case. Melodies are, with only a few and rare exceptions, everything to me. It is hard to make a lasting impression with the kind of slow deathrash that Norther are close to here. If it weren't for the keyboard that creates at least some nice and filling background sounds, this would be very dry and stiff.

There is not much that catches my interest on this album and I would go as far as saying that this is at many times quite boring due to repetitive refrains (Drowning, Everything, Evil Ladies, Alone In The End) and lack of action during the verses. The song Wasted Years has a very appropriate title as it feels like a waste of valuable minutes of my life everytime I listen to it. I honestly almost fall asleep during it evertime. Ironically, the best guitar work on the album appears for half a minute in that very song, but alas that is a very feeble comfort in this gray mess.

It sounds like a desperate try to do something new but the songs are not good enough and then everyting falls pretty flat. This is a very lukewarm album. Verses are in most cases non-saying and do not engage, the refrains contain a few words that are repeated 4-8 times (Everything, Evil Ladies, Scream). Many people, including me, have problems with vocalist Lindroos from time to time but I have to at least say that he is one of the better ones of the "less good ones". Nevertheless, he sings monotone and dry and is a contributing factor to the low grade seen overall.

The best moments on this album are parts, but only parts, of the first and the last song of the album plus Scream, since they at least bare some sort of quality, and during a handful of nice solos and leads but that's pretty much it. I will most certainly keep on playing their back catalouge frequently but it feels like the times I have listened to this album as a preparation for the review is more than enough.