The music of Sentenced is dark and depressive, heavy yet filled with atmospheric layers and tension. Prior to the release of their latest album Crimson, I had the opportunity to interview lead vocalist Ville Laihiala. Read on for the latest news…

Highwire Daze: Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Sentenced.

Ville Laihiala: My name is Ville Laihiala and I’m the singer in Sentenced. We’ve been together for a little over ten years. We actually celebrated our ten year anniversary this Christmas. Our musical style has changed album by album – we started out playing death metal and it evolved from there to this gothic style metal melodic stuff.

HD: Where is the band from and what is the music scene like there?

Ville: The band is from Northern Finland. And the music scene in Finland is really good. There come a lot of bands from Finland who do well in Europe. It’s basically good, but personally I don’t follow any kind of scenes – I only follow the bands that I like. I’m not sure if I’m the right person to ask about the Finnish metal scene.

HD: How do you think the new album Crimson compares to the other recordings?

Ville: It’s the first album that we took part in the production and really worked in the studio. It was a new step for us. Musically, it’s more aggressive than our previous one Frozen, and the production is much heavier, and the music is more full. The first idea was that we were going to produce it by ourselves, but we kind of realized that we were going to need some help. But it’s something that we really worked hard for and are really proud of. This guy, Hiili, who produced the first Him album – I called him up and I asked him if he wanted to do our album and he said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” He’s really good with sounds and I think people are going to hear about him more in the future.

HD: Where do you get the ideas for the lyrics?

Ville: Usually we have written stuff about suicide, death, self hate or whatever. But this time, it’s more about love and the dark side of it. We had written about love earlier but I think if there was a theme on this album, the theme would be love.

HD: With Sentenced music being so gloomy, what is it that you guys like to do for fun when you’re not performing depressive works of art?

Ville: Uh – get drunk. (laughs) We’re trying to live a normal life as everyone else. It’s kind of a personal therapy for us – to get out stuff musically than doing it actually. We’re not going to kill ourselves – not yet. Basically we get drunk so we don’t have to worry about anything – when you’re drunk you don’t care about stuff.

HD: You added some songs on the previous album Frozen after it’s release. Any plans to do it again with Crimson?

Ville: I don’t think so. We’re planning to do something, but I really don’t know what. I don’t think we’re going to record anything. If we’re going to record, it’s going to be live because we’ve been planning to do something live – maybe an EP like three songs and two cover songs – but it’s just an idea. But I hope we will do it because it would be a lot of fun.

HD: How do you feel performing songs that you didn’t originally sing?

Ville: When I joined the band, it felt really weird because I didn’t know how I was suppose to sing them. Now I don’t think about it – I just do it my way. It’s not a problem to me anymore like it was in the beginning. I don’t think about it now. I just go onstage and have fun.

HD: Describe a live Sentenced show to those of us who have yet to see you.

Ville: It’s a lot of energy and a lot of head banging! Cool lights, great sounds. I really like to interact with the audience – to get them crazy and have fun and kill themselves or whatever. But it’s a lot of energy. We don’t use any synthesizers or DAT tapes or anything like that. It’s just two guitars, bass, drums, vocals and just a fucking aggressive approach. And that’s what you could expect when you come to see us.

HD: How has the reaction towards Sentenced been in the States so far and are there any plans for a tour?

Ville: Yeah, we get a lot of e-mail in our homepage. It’s really surprising how many people write to us from the States. There’s a festival on March 9th where we’re going to play in New York. And there’s been some discussion about us, Moonspell and Amorphous doing a three week tour of the States also in March. We’re definitely going to come there.

HD: If the was one thing you’d like to leave a listener with after hearing your music, what would it be?

Ville: We just want people to hear that there’s a lot of passion and layers in the music. It’s not just heavy sounds. You really have to listen to it. It’s basically almost the only thing we love so we put everything into it – and we hope that people really listen to it.

HD: Any messages for your fans here in the States?

Ville: When we come over there, you definitely have to come and see us. And buy the damn record and get hooked. Stay depressed.