Review by Michael on January 13, 2021.

Finland in 1992, a number of young black and death metal bands from the land of 1000 lakes are waiting to be discovered by the metal world. Among them are four boys of Sentenced (among others Taneli Jarva, who at that time is also the bassist of Impaled Nazarene). However, the band is not dedicated to ultra-evil Finnish black metal, but after a short, atmospheric keyboard intro the band starts with old school death-doom metal, which is similar to other Finnish death metal bands that were at work at the time (Demigod, Amorphis or the unfortunately completely underestimated and forgotten Mordicus). On Shadows of the Past singer is not yet Taneli Jarva, who sang the two reference works North From Here and Amok, but Miika Tenkula, who died much too early in 2009.

Musically, as I said, old school death metal prevails, whose tempo is sometimes increased, sometimes slides into the death-doom area. From time to time you can hear the guitar leads that would characterize the following albums (especially on 'When the Moment of Death Arrives'). 'Rot to Dead' starts like a Finnish variant of the first Paradise Lost album. In the middle of the song there is a very fast solo, which makes the song quite varied but there are also some passages that remind of old Slayer albums. Listen to the beginning of 'Disengagement', which reminds me a lot of the chorus of 'Tormentor' from the "Show No Mercy" album. Of course in a death metal version. 'The Truth' starts with acoustic guitars that seamlessly transition into a track that is definitely reminiscent of old Carcass in places. The only track that is not really convincing is the bonus track of the CD ('Descending Curtain of Death'). The track is an instrumental metal piece, which is kept very slow and is only spiced up with a spoken word passage, which doesn't fit in at all from a vocal point of view. Personally, I find the song quite boring, because it's monotonous. But what Sentenced did really well on the album and otherwise succeeded, are the tempo changes in the tracks, which make the album quite varied and worth listening to, even if they win with Shadows of the Past certainly no innovation prize, because you have heard it all at the time somewhere else.

If you like to listen to old school death metal, especially Finnish, and can't do anything with the albums of Sentenced from 1996 on (i.e. Down), you should at least risk an ear. Apart from that, if you're a collector, you should grab the original CD if you can find it, because it has a pretty cool cover and when I look at the prices on Ebay, it must be also pretty rare.

Rating: 7.2 out of 10