TodieforWWO

Intro – Sorrow

Wicked Circle

Guilt Ridden State

Like Never Before

Under A Velvet Sky

Scar Diary

New Heaven

The Quiet Room

Liquid Lies

I Just Want You

Sorrow Remains

Jape Peratalo – Vocals

Joones Koto – Guitar

Antza Talala – Guitar

Josey Strandman – Bass

Santtu Lonka – Drums

TO/DIE/FOR: "Wounds Wide Open" to/die/for

Spinefarm Records

Jaded

review by Matthew "Newbreed99" Haumschild___

If I could get away with it, I’d open up all my windows.

I’m actually quite happy that TDF welcomed Koto back into their line-up. To me, he was the heart and soul to TDF’s guitar work. When he left, it just wasn’t the same. Now that he is back, the solos have returned!! And in this line-up, as far as I know, there aren’t any members from New Dawn Foundation. But I must say, this CD sounds completely different from all of their other past albums. The guitars sound heavier, the drums are faster and even the song structures are different. About the only thing that stayed the same on this CD is that the lyrics are sung in the same fashion as they have been on their past albums. As I mentioned before, the guitar solos are back after a one-album absence.

I didn’t expect TDF to open or even create a song that resembled Wicked Circle. It’s almost too fast! It’s as if the band just got together and said, “Guys, last add some more rock element to our sound.” And that’s exactly what they did. It’s like TDF took their music to the gym and pumped it up a notch. There are some extra dramatic keyboards thrown in the mix as well which added a better dimension to their sound as well. TDF isn’t a stranger to keyboards, but the ones that are on this track are indescribable. It almost seemed as if it were a movie soundtrack, they were that good. It makes everyone else’s keyboard parts cheesy by comparison. If you’ve heard TDF before you will be stunned when you hear this song.

The next track shocks me just as much as the last one. Guilt Ridden takes this genre of Gothic to a new level. It’s as if gothic is being blended with the best of 80’s keyboard work with, “prog” guitars with thrash and there it is. It’s almost a new genre. It’s gothic, but it’s not. The lyrics are not upbeat by any means, but the music isn’t slow. It isn’t fast, but it’s dramatic. If I could describe this song with one word it would be…brilliant. The singing and guitar work blend perfectly with melody. The drums are perfect, the keys…I can’t say anything more.

Now, Like Never Before sounds very much like TDF’s earlier work dating back when they were called Mary-Ann. It sounds more like modern rock is blended with gothic. It sounds a bit more upbeat and it’s catchy. The lyrics are pretty catchy too. I was starting to sing the song after hearing it twice. It’s their first single off this album, and I like it but it’s not my favorite. Jape is singing about love and that is blatantly obvious, this is the only song on the album that resembles anything like their previous work.

Scar Diary begins with this cool sounding guitar intro. But once the vocals kick in, it becomes a different song altogether. The interesting part of this song is that the guitars sound too heavy to be gothic, the singing is too depressing to be metal, the keyboards that aren’t dramatic enough to call it prog, so what is this song? How would I describe it? Only that it’s a downbeat, heavy mid-paced song that has an original composition.

By far, my favorite song on the CD is Liquid Lies. By far, it’s the heaviest song on the whole CD. The song starts out with a fast drumbeat followed by fast keyboard work. The song slows down as it’s building up to the chorus then before I knew it the drummer is hitting his crash cymbal and this female singer comes in and sings my favorite line, “Ripping wounds wide open, give it all you got!” and the rest of the chorus is just slamming! I could get lost in this song; it’s filled with so much emotion. If I could get away with it, I’d open up all my windows and blast this song! I think, I just found my new favorite TDF song. After the second chorus, that female singer, known as Katja Vauhkonen, sings this beautiful interlude that lasts for about a minute, but then another chorus comes in and kicks my ass. I fucking love this song, the weird part…it doesn’t sound like TDF…it doesn’t sound like any band I know!

I Just Want You. For once, TDF does a cover of a song I have in my collection. I figured if anyone could cover this song, it would be TDF. I say they do a fair job of doing it but I felt that Jape could have done a better job singing it. It’s similar to the way Ozzy sings, but after hearing Jape, I realize how good Ozzy is and how hard it can be for any other signer to sing those lyrics. I also got to thinking, could Ozzy have started this gothic genre? I’m not talking about the song “Black Sabbath” which is the first metal song, which is still to this day the darkest fucking song ever, which is gothic by nature. What I am talking about is the gothic music that is coming out of Finland where it isn’t so dark as it is depressing and more about love or lost love than anything else. It made me think, even with the song, “Good-Bye To Romance.” Who knows? The song was reproduced all right. I prefer the original to the cover any day but it’s still worth listening to.

Quality:

The mix was fine about the only thing weird about it was that the snare sound changed during some of the songs and the cymbal sound wasn’t as constant as I would have liked but that’s going overboard.

Overall:

It was an awesome album! But it didn’t sound like TDF. It’s as if they grew up. The music sounds a bit more serious than their other albums. I got the sense that they weren’t fucking around at all with this CD. Everything was different except in the way the lyrics were sung. The band is much more dynamic than it ever had been in it’s history. They were so dynamic it was precision-like. I believe this is a new standard and I believe it’ll be hard for any band to match what TDF is like on this album. For god sakes, buy this CD if anything, to learn about what a tight band is…this is the new TDF and thank god…the guitar solos are back.

rating: 9/10

Matthew Haumschild 23.10.2006

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