The Rasmus
Dead Letters

THE REVIEW

One day in 2004, when I still (alas) listened to those silly Maroon 5 and that skank Avril Lavigne, I happened to hear on television "In The Shadows" by these The Rasmus, unknown to me at the time. Come on, it's not bad, certainly not a great song, but somewhat we are there.

So, I decide to buy their CD, "Dead Letters," that summer. Completely ignoring the bizarre title of the album (I suppose in Italian it's "Lettere morte"), I start listening to it. It's not bad as a start, "First Day Of My Life" isn't too bad, a good song full of rock energy and a good vocal tone by Lauri Ylonen, the band's singer. Then we definitely find the best song on the album, which is "In The Shadows", an energetic track that, together with the album, reached the Top 10 and Top 3 respectively in the UK charts, and both entered the Top 50 of the Australian charts, simultaneously reaching the top of the singles chart in New Zealand. The single also reached the Top 20 of the Billboard Heatseeker charts, which is a good achievement.

Then we find at number 3 "Still Standing", a song that starts calm and relaxing only to turn into a wild rock song, but in my opinion rather boring. After this, we can say there's the last "nice" song of this album, which is "In My Life", a beautiful rock tune, very wild where the singer's vocal tones reach their peak. Other songs worth mentioning are "Guilty", appreciated by most people, although I don't see anything special in it, a repetitive rock song that only repeats itself, and then "Funeral Song", just as funeral as it's sad and boring. This group, formed in 1994, has made 7 albums so far, achieving a modest success, sometimes spoiled by strong reactions from the audience, who at the "Reading Festival" in 2004 threw plastic bottles until the band was forced to leave the stage.

But returning to the album, a modest record, perhaps good for lovers of commercial rock/metal genre. Subsequently, in 2005, their seventh album, "Hide From The Sun," was released, which received poor success due to the modest quality of songs like "No Fear", the first to be released, "Sail Away", a little better, and "Shot". The other members of this Finnish band are Pauli Rantasalmi, guitarist, Aki Hakala, drummer, and Eero Heinonen as bassist. What kind of names...