Band:	The Chant
Album:	This Is The World We Know
Style:	Suomi metal
Release date:	April 14, 2010
A review by:	Thryce

01. New Reality
02. Reflected
03. November 1987
04. The Black Ascension
05. Will You Follow
06. Safe World
07. Common Price
08. Armored Man
09. Relativity

Suomi metal
Recorded: Drop Hammer Studios/Sound Track Studios/South Curve Studios, Finland 2009
Label: Full Metal Music
Total Running Time: 48:19


You can really hear The Chant live in a Nordic country where it freezes most of the time. Shimmers of dark winter melancholy and flashes of the calming warmth of a fireplace keep seeping into these songs from all sides. This is music made to move you.

Using glossy and straightforward rock music with some metal hiccups, The Chant easily finds the gateway into suomi metal. Catchy rock hooks are woven together by soothing guitar lines and compelling piano parts. In that event, This Is The World We Know - an album dealing with mental isolation btw - fosters a special kind of atmosphere that is tranquil as well as dolorous.

The real icing on the cake though, is the ever soulful voice of Ilpo Paasela; a voice that almost literally pours melancholy. His somber vocals are mostly clean, without ever sounding whiny, at times backed up with some blistering screams. Paasela 's warm and strong vocals couldn't be more fitting for this kind of mellow music, giving the album even more depth and vigor.

The Chant is perhaps still a little too radio rock-driven to come anywhere close to that acclaimed Ghost Brigade-like melancholic mood. Nonetheless This Is The World We Know rolls in as a good-to-great album with a clean and streamlined touch, that will undoubtedly turn a lot of heads, with its gloomy atmosphere warming the cockles of many hearts.