The departure of singer/guitarist Petri Lindroos has been intercepted by adding Aleksi Sihvonen (ex-Impernon) and Daniel Freyburg (ex-Naildown) as new members. The vocals of Aleksi are shrill screaming ones, but Kristian Ranta gives enough counter-pressure with his clean singing style. Norther has musically always been compared with Children of Bodom, but on this new album the similarities are a little bit less.
Several melodic guitar parts remind of CoB and the keyboard parts perhaps too, but that's about it. Norther didn't create a new style, but they have succeeded in writing better and catchier songs with more melody and nice clean singing parts. It is even possible to sing along to the track "Falling". Biggest parts of the tracks are rather fast and heavy like "The Hate I Bear" and "Truth". Another track that's very interesting is "Closing In", mainly because of the very elegant guitar solo. The last 3 tracks were not included on my promo, but you can find them on the special edition.
You always have to wait what happens when a key-member departs from a band, but Norther proves that they haven't become less interesting and they can be proud of this sixth album. With a production that stands like a concrete wall they've made one of their best albums so far.
