Immortal Souls blows the frost in and dust the snow out of your stereo. The cold landscapes of the north are present in the bands music. Hence the music has sometimes been referred to as winter metal.. Since the beginning of their existence Immortal Souls have been known as a underground name, playing fast paced death metal with attitude. Closest musical influences are coming from bands like Dark Tranquillity and In Flames. But their sound is also reminiscent of Sentenced. After a couple of demos and EP's in 2001, their first album entitled 'Under the Northern Sky' was released.

THE CLEANSING/UNDER THE NORTHERN SKY (2000, 2001) LITTLE ROSE (CDR)

THE CLEANSING (EP)
  1. The Cleansing
  2. Until
  3. The Prophet
  4. Icebound

Line-up:

A. Särkioja - Voice & Bass
E. Särkioja - Guitars
Pete Loisa - Guitars
Jupe Hakola - Drums
UNDER THE NORTHERN SKY
  1. Frostmind
  2. The Cleansing
  3. The Cold Northwind
  4. Blue Flamed Fire
  5. Snowfalls - instrumental
  6. Dark Night Under The Northern Sky
  7. Love Demise
  8. Metsäkukkia
  9. Winterheart
  10. Paintings

Immortal Souls is a band I for a long time had written off as just another Christian black metal band at the demo stage, releasing lousy produced albums. It didn't help when people told me that they sounded like In Flames. Why do people do that? No one sounds like In Flames! If they did, they would be selling hundreds of thousands of albums by now! But then someone proposed a CDR trade with me, and I thought, why not? And boy am I glad I did! There is no doubt that they are influenced by In Flames. I would describe them as a mix of melodic death metal, black metal and Sentenced! Yup, you read it right! And what is more important, they sound great! Cool melodies, great raspy death vocals, crunchy and fat guitars, in other words; everything a metalhead like me can ask for. Immortal Souls are definitely a band to look out for.

This write-up is based on a CDR I got consisting of the bands 'The Cleansing' EP and their full-length debut album. The EP contains no fillers, as all of the tracks show a band hungry to play the music they love. And the album is quite good too. It might get a bit too anonymous after a while, as I have a hard time telling the songs apart. But that also means that I like all the tracks equally as good. I have no problem recommending these gems.

Killer tracks: The Cleansing, Until, The Prophet, Icebound, Blue Flamed Fire, Dark Night Under The Northern Sky, Paintings