THE RASMUS: Dark Matters (ALTERNATIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

In their 21-year career, Finnish band The Rasmus have become a band with a protean yet easily identifiable identity. From the funk of the first albums of a band barely out of high school to the electronic touches appearing on the last self-titled album of 2012, including the rock of the early 2000s, the quartet has often baffled his audience but without ever betraying it. Led by Lauri Ylönen's almost childlike voice, the Helsinki natives have always kept a typically Nordic sound, both airy and melancholic. After a 5 years break imposed by the launch of the solo career of the vocalist, the leaders of the Finnish rock scene are back with their ninth studio opus recorded with the Swedish collective The Family (Iggy Azalea, Fifth Harmony...).

Given the history of this production team and the electro path taken by Lauri Ylönen on his first solo album ("New World" - 2011), it's not surprising to see this "Dark Matter" following an approach already deflowered on "The Rasmus" in 2012. If the singles 'Paradise' and 'Wonderman' have relatively spared the fundamentalists, there is a good chance to see them become crimson with anger when listening to the dancing 'Something In The Dark', 'Crystalline' or 'Delirium'. They might even have an apoplectic attack when the electro sounds of 'Nothing' or 'Black Days' will overtake their auditory pavilions stiffened by their convictions on what should be the identity of a so-called rock band. The quasi absence of the guitar on several titles, the atmospheres sometimes worthy of dance-floors and the always so limpid voice of Lauri Ylönen are many elements which will not support the vindication of the tyrants having decreed doctrines from which it is unquestionable to move away under final sentence.

Fortunately, like the great majority of their compatriots and the inhabitants of their Scandinavian neighbors, the members of The Rasmus don't care about these despotic minorities and have an open-mindedness that allows them to combine a multitude of styles and experimentations to a base that remains, despite everything, a form of easy-going alternative pop-rock. Each track is again provided with unforgettable refrains and bewitching melodies. From an icy and haunting 'Paradise' with its hammered bass to the dreamy and aerial ballad of a sincere and mastered 'Dragons Into Dreams', the atmospheres are varied but keep the coherence of a night in the streets of the pearl of the Baltic (nickname of Helsinki). The four companions succeed in blending melancholy and enthusiasm ('Something In The Dark'), the darkness of many lyrics and hypnotizing beats ('Nothing', 'Empire'), or scathing guitars and melodic choruses ('Wonderman') in a balance as delicate as improbable.

Without forgetting to quote the diptych 'Black Days' / 'Silver Nights' playing on the chiaroscuro and the reflection in negative of the one towards the other, the conclusion of the numerous listenings of this opus is without any doubt enthusiastic. As usual, The Rasmus refuses to be rigid and succeeds with class to integrate a good dose of electro in its rock without denaturalizing it. The approach was daring but it reaches its goal by bringing the touch of a dancing lightness to an indisputable melancholy. An album to recommend to those who are not afraid to venture on artistic grounds made of flexibility, imagination and freshness. - Official website

THE RASMUS

DARK MATTERS

AUTRE LABEL

ALTERNATIVE ROCK