"Shadows of the Past" was recorded and mixed at Tico-Tico Studio, Kemi, in October '91. Engineered by Ahti Kortelainen. "Journey to Pohjola" recorded and mixed north from here in March '92. Additional 3 bonus tracks from the "Journey To Pohjola" promo-tape. Remastered at DMS.
Like so many of their Finnish contemporaries, Sentenced were a band to release one purebred death metal album before drastically changing their style. Unlike many of them, Sentenced actually are known more for what they did after their debut. From
North From Here’s wild melodic death metal, to
Amok’s more catchy display of melodeath, to the band later making a career out of gothic metal with the general message of “I BE FUCKIN’ SAD”. While North From Here is a very unique album, and Amok is possibly their most influential album of all, I still have to hold their debut album
Shadows of the Past as their best of all.
Released back in 1991 as one of the first full length albums to hit the Finnish death metal scene, it’s straight up ignorant to write
Shadows of the Past off as an also ran in the scene just based on what Sentenced would produce later. Having an extremely evil sounding full length debut is expected in this scene, and Sentenced just happened to do theirs extremely well.
This album has a bit of an advantage over the other full length Finn death albums from 1991: Tico Tico Studios (where Demigod and Mordicus would later record their debut albums). It’s given
Shadows of the Past a clearer sound compared to the likes of Convulse or Funebre without completely sacrificing the gritty guitar sound. The result was a sound that capitalized on the bands influences at the time which largely stemmed from Florida death metal - a downtuned monstrosity with call backs to Death and Obituary. Unlike those bands, Sentenced also had a melody to their riffs. Sometimes melancholic like in the outro to album opener “When the Moment of Death Arrives”, but more times this melody has a grim sound to it very close to the way Bolt Thrower sounds. But it should also be noted that Bolt Thrower themselves only just released
War Master in 1991 as well, so it’s really awesome to hear Sentenced develop a similar sound apparently independently.
I’m not trying to make this sound like a long lost Bolt Thrower album; there’s a lot of things Sentenced do differently, especially on the second half on the album where the tempo gets faster than the standard Bolt Thrower song and closer to the pace of the Swedish scene. Miika Tenkula’s vocals are a lot more Florida death metal inspired, sounding like a mixture of Chuck Schuldiner and John Tardy to great effect. His bellowing voice really fit with the grim melodies of the album. Tenkula was also the lead guitar player and honestly one of the best guitarists from the scene. He provides some really chilling solos played in a way that would be recognizable for almost all of Sentenced’s existence even after they abandoned death metal.
It’s just as well that Sentenced would abandon this style of death metal almost immediately; not because it’s what almost every other Finnish death metal band did in the golden age, but because they would likely fall flat if they tried to do this again.
Shadows of the Past is one of the best albums from this scene. Though their later work gets more of the spotlight, ignore this band at your own risk.
Sample:
youtube.com/watch?v=r6YjEAYFDhY&list=RDr6YjEAYFDhY&start_radio=1
