What’s nice is that since I started to write for Soundscape nearly four years ago, I’ve discovered a whole host of excellent bands I may not have otherwise encountered. One of my first great discoveries whilst contributing to the site was a band called Dead End Finland, whose promo copy of their second album Season Of Withering dropped into my inbox during the tail end of 2013, and I’ve been keeping track of them ever since. They’re now back with album number three, entitled Slaves To The Greed, and although their previous releases have been great, this one feels like a definite step up from those.
Dead End Finland immediately get straight down to business with powerful opening track Through The Echoes, Future & Past. The introduction is fairly simplistic, with a combination of keys and some more synthesised sounds, and it sets the scene well before a fuller sound is added and it just feels like a triumphant opening – and when the vocals kick in, the track reaches the next level!
However it’s the third track, Fragments Of The Innocent, that really amps things up. Starting off slowly with acoustic guitars, ambient keys and violin atop of a simplistic beat, when the electronic line joins in, it really picks up the pace and takes the track to the next level. It’s a serious earworm and it reappears on multiple occasions in the track as a revisited idea, which is a nice touch and certainly helps to hammer it all home! Additionally, the vocal performance is particularly powerful in this song, with the seamless transition between clean and harsh vocals sounding very natural – sometimes when a track switches between different vocal techniques, it can sound jerky but that’s definitely not the case with this one.
The album continues strongly from there, with other strong inclusions being the striking Nightfall, which features a highly emotive chorus that seems like it would be breathtaking in a live environment, and closing track Slaves To The Greed, which also serves as the title track, is a triumphant end to a most magnificent piece of work – it really ends it on a high and rounds it all up rather nicely with massive-sounding instrumentation and a solid vocal line to accompany. Additionally, the interlude track, Devil’s Triangle works well at dividing the album up (something I noted that its equivalent on Seasons Of Withering failed to do!) and helps the album to maintain a good flow.
Dead End Finland have created something special with Slaves To The Greed. The band has built on what made their last two albums great, and have gone above and beyond in achieving this. What an album!
10/10
