Sound: With their latest album, Hide From The Sun (HFTS), The Rasmus have entered the more mainstream rock scene. While their dark melodies and Lauri's characteristic 'rough' vocals are still there, The Rasmus are beginning to lose their individual alternative and Finnish rock sound. This is a good and a bad thing, some of their fans who loved their previous two albums do not appreciate HFTS as much as those who do prefer the more unoriginal sound that The Rasmus is now creating. Their music is also a bit harder and darker than previous albums such as Dead Letters and Into, and the songs themselves are less diverse, there is less variation in melody, accompaniment, arrangement, and overall sound. // 7
Lyrics and Singing: As always, The Rasmus' lyrics are dark, deep and full of emotion. Although the lyrics are beautiful, the arrangement of the tracks on HFTS do not in the slightest compliment the lyrical meaning of each song. This means that the songs which all individually have brilliant lyrics, are nowhere near as effective as they could be with better arrangement. // 8
Impression: Overall I think The Rasmus has done a good job with their latest album. Following on from their last (and in my opinion best) album, Dead Letters, is a hard thing to do. And, being a Rasmus fan myself, I suppose I have to leave a bit more of a positive finish to my review. The best songs on the album include 'Sail Away' which is a beautiful electric-acoustic song, 'Immortal' which is another of the more original sounding songs, and 'No Fear' which was their first single off the album. I am glad I bought HFTS, even though I had higher expectations from it. There are still a few great songs on it that can almost make me cry. People will always compare HFTS to Dead Letters and there will always be disagreement as to which album is better. At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal preference and taste. // 7
good comment
And to "and the songs themselves are less diverse, there is less variation in melody, accompaniment, arrangement, and overall sound": That's something wich you can find in every band! But I don't think it's something bad, when the songs have a kind of equality. On an album it's important that the songs fit anyway together. On DL it were the lyrics who where like letters, on HFTS it's the similar sound. In my opinion is HFTS as good as DL 'cause both albums have a different level.