Album: “Dead Letters”

Description

This is an Enhanced CD which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. The Rasmus: Lauri Ylonen (vocals); Pauli Rantasalmi (guitar); Eero Heinonen (bass); Aki Hakala (drums). Additional personnel: Ylva Nilsson, Hakan Westlund, Anna Wallgren (cello); Mikael Nord Andersson, Martin Hansen (keyboards, programming, effects); Jorgen Ingestrom (keyboards). Producers: Mikael Nord Andersson, Martin Hansen. This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. Like fellow Finnish rockers HIM, the Rasmus has a penchant for catchy goth-pop invigorated by metallic guitars. While many of the band's countrymen prefer a doomier, gloomier brand of goth-metal, the Rasmus makes its melancholy music sound a bit prettier, as its songs swirl in influences ranging from Black Sabbath to the Cure and even a touch of 1960s pop. Frontman Lauri Ylonen eschews the deep-bass vocals favored by the genre, sounding a bit like an angsty teen-pop singer, a singing style that works well with the music. There are plenty of infectious cuts to be found on the group's fifth album (and first US release) DEAD LETTERS, from the danceable grooves of lead single "In the Shadows" to the energetic rock of "Back in the Picture" and the morose musings of "Funeral Song." The album also features appropriately existential lyrics such as "I'd rather kill myself than turn into their slave" and "I died in my dreams, what's that supposed to mean?" Listeners that like their music goth--but not too goth--should be entranced by the Rasmus.