Sentenced's
Frozen was a slight disappointment for their older fans -- the overall sound was poppy and the whole record seemed to be just a drunken side project. Unfortunately,
Crimson continues even further in the direction of
Frozen: the sound has been simplified and the songs are more depressing, so there appears to be no chance that
Sentenced will return to
Down or even to
Amok. Still,
Crimson is not a complete failure. Despite sounding like a bad copy of
Type O Negative, it has its moments. The first single, "Killing Me Killing You," is a very fine song, although it resulted in
Sentenced being accused of selling their souls to pop music. There are also some tracks that don't follow the theme of
Crimson, with "Broken" and "Dead Moon Rising" actually sounding more like tracks from
Amok.
Crimson may enable
Sentenced to attract a new audience from pop music, but definitely not from heavy metal. ~ Antti J. Ravelin