Aptly titled, The Funeral Album signals the end of Sentenced’s 16 year long existence. This is particularly disappointing given that I had never heard any of their material until their performance at Wacken Open Air 2005 as part of their Funeral Tour.

The Funeral Album is full to bursting with the traditional Finnish melancholic and romantic “love metal” (pardon the expression) sounds that HIM took to the mainstream, and in fact both single “Ever-Frost” and album reached number one in the Finnish single and album charts respectively.

Despite the style, the album has plenty of variety. Opener ‘May Today Become the Day’ is catchy and upbeat, this is followed up by Ever-Frost, which is more aggressive and hostile. I certainly did a double take upon hearing the lyric “We will piss upon your grave”. Nice! Of course, you can’t have a Sentenced album without some heartfelt ballads, and there’s a few – ‘Her Last Five Minutes’ probably being the best, and certainly the most full of despair.

Instrumental ‘Where Waters Fall Frozen’ is a short burst of aggression, which does not really seem to have any place being on the album, given that it sticks out like a sore thumb in between two of the nicer songs on the album. ”Vengeance Is Mine” and “A Long Way To Nowhere” keep up a nice groove, even if the latter could be accused of being a little middle-of-the-road, and by this point, the songs might start to become a little samey, meaning that the middle of the album blurs into one long catchy upbeat Finnish melancholic love-metal drone.

Luckily, “Lower The Flags” signals the end of this, and injects a much needed break from the plodding rhythm of the previous two (or three, I lost count) songs. Perhaps even more luckily, the final two songs are completely different. Acoustic bit of pointlessness, instrumental ‘Karu’ creates a total break from, well, anything remotely worthwhile including, before the album finishes on stunner ‘End Of The Road’. This song is tremendously significant; this is Sentenced saying goodbye. Take note of the lyrics, it’s really quite sad.

It’s clear throughout this album that it was written with the end in mind, and that theme stands out clearly. Each and every song says goodbye - be it in a despairing way - or just Ville telling us that Sentenced are going to piss upon our graves.

Standout Tracks:  End Of The Road, Her Last Five Minutes, Vengeance Is Mine.

Overall Score:   7.5 /10