Band:	Sinisthra
Album:	Last Of The Stories Of Long Past Glories
Style:	Gothic metal
Release date:	May 13, 2005
A review by:	Malcolm

01. Coming Up Rose
02. Ice Cube Sun
03. Fearless Under The Falling Sky
04. To The One Far Away
05. Unrevealed
06. My Sweet Nothing
07. Fucking Fragile
08. Innocence... A Sense
09. Completely Incomplete

To place this new Finnish band in a genre it pretty much impossible, they really don't fit in anywhere, but in the same time you'll hear a lot of different kinds of influences in the band. So I've chosen to call them a Melancholic Metal band, more against Gothic than any other genre, just because of the melancholic and "negative" feeling the music evoke.
Now this music is really something for me since I am a sucker for depressive Metal in almost all kinds.

Now Sinisthra isn't really newbie musicians, here you'll find the new voice of Amorphis, Tomi Joutsen, The Candles Burning Blue guitarist Mr. Välimäki among others, but as Sinisthra, they are new and this album is their first effort (with a real label behind them) to our metal society, and it's not just any album either. This "hard-to-categorize" music is both very original and at the same time very similar to many other bands. Sinisthra has picked the best from Gothic bands like Paradise Lost and mixed it together with some influences of some heavier Metal bands and putted in some progressive parts in it and also a pinch of Doom, a glorious mix.

Before I'll start talking about songs, production and quality, I must point out that my copy of the album is an unmastered promotion copy, so I assume that some parts when it comes to the sound will be much better on the final product that you'll hold in your hand when you (if you) buy the album and the ending song "Innocence? Is a Sense" is not included on my copy either. I just wanted to clear that out.

So the first thing I notice when the album starts spinning is the volume level and quality of the music, and that's exactly what I meant with that I wrote above, I assume that the volume will be higher on the retail and that the sound in general will be better.
Except that "Coming up Rose" is a great starter, you'll here from the very first moment exactly what could expect of the album, both of the music and the words.
And already here you'll notice (if you have the lyrics in hand) that Sinisthra's lyrics are a bit different from other "depressive", Gothic, Melancholic Metal bands, they are not saying anything about death in anyway, they are instead of feelings and personal issues.

Following "Ice Cube Sun" follows "Coming up Rose" in a good way, and you'll hear the beginning of a red thread, that will follow the music throughout the whole record.
The very original voice of Joutsen brings the music a depth that many bands are missing today, but I also think that many will have pretty hard for him as a singer, since his voice is, as I said, very original.
Personally I love him (at least in Sinisthra, how he will do in Amorphis, only time can tell), just listen to his emotions in the chorus of the third song "Fearless Under the Falling Sky", that's just masterful.

The following tracks follow pretty much the same pattern and melts perfectly into this great piece of plastic and keeps the score from me high, there aren't much to complain about and that's a great achievement, and therefore I'll reward the band and their album with a pretty high score, they really deserve it.
So if you think this sounds interesting, I recommend you to pay their official homepage a visit and try out a mp3 clip or two and see if this is something for you too, and if it is, buy the album, I assure you that it's worth it, Sinisthra has made a great first album and I really think this band can go really far, and I hope they will, because I want more of their music.

Favourite Tracks: "Fearless Under the Falling Sky", "To the One far Away" & "My Sweet Nothing".