Review – “Dead Letters” by The Rasmus

For those who enjoy their hard rock with a dark, yet melodic vibe to it, then the Rasmus will have you enthralled in an almost fairytale-like and emotional venture. Since their emergence from a garage and the release of their first album “Peep,” in 1996, the band have defied a lot of trends to explore their own creativity and “Dead Letters” was a result of this. Of the 2.5 millions album copies sold worldwide by The Rasmus, 1.5 million of these are of Dead Letters and for a group of Finnish schoolmates, this is an incredible feat.

At an initial hearing of the album, you get a strong feeling of sorrow and hardship as well as strength and you wouldn’t believe singer Lauri Ylönen to be encompassing this, as an average kind of Finnish male who then defied a lot of trends to pursue his own creative freedom. To me, the first song sets the stage, or the narrative for the whole album and for ‘First Day Of My Life’ it couldn’t get more straightforward with the title. Strong guitar rhythms and a harmonious voice combined with violins, cellos and myriad of other backing instruments make for a polished and professional piece of audio artwork. Meaning that Dead Letters provokes the senses to feel what The Rasmus are feeling and for fans of hard rock, particularly The Rasmus’ style of hard rock, they would feel goosebumps and chills up their spines. Lauri’s methods of songwriting comprise of cleverly mixing tempo and pitch with the climactic sections of his songs to be loud, almost as if they’re bursting forth from his theme of struggles and with this knowledge in mind, most people would understand how they can interpret the theme of strength in this album. To put it into a nutshell, Lauri Ylönen mixes hard and soft styles of rock but redefines the chorus into amplifying the tone, emotion and message of the song to the listeners and fans.In a way this reaches out to people undergoing great hardships and struggles to take a stand and fight back for their livelihoods.

It was smart of The Rasmus to look at the concepts of sorrow, becoming strong and making our own stamps because at the time of the album release, it was a whole new wave of music where a lot of punk rock and hard rock emerged and young people in particular took to these genres.  Despite the singer’s talents to create masterpiece music befitting of the current social and musical environment, there are a few drawbacks to Dead Letters that encumber Lauri’s songwriting masterpieces. The mood later becomes downtrodden in struggles and misery and albums that start on a high and descend down to a less-than powerful atmosphere often put me off. Meaning that even though Mr Ylönen and the band can create beautiful songs, unfortunately the structure of the tracklist is jagged and misplaced and this can display a different mood entirely. As much as the music is enjoyable, The Rasmus have some ways to go to improve and then dominate the rock genre. Luckily this only happens in a couple of tracks near the end of the album and the melodic hard rock vibe that listeners initially receive from the band, is picked back up again to provide a powerful mood-driven climax.

Regardless of that minor setback in negativity, Dead Letters is an extremely potent mix of melodies, choir-like singing and that hard rock edge that’s like a steel-toe-capped boot, swiping non-believers in the face before they even get a chance to start hating… And that’s one boot I don’t want to have an indent of on my face, believe me.

The Spirit and Meaning of Family

Over the Christmas holidays and festive celebrations, I was pondering the concept of the word family and what it means… It got me thinking about its boundaries and the people this word affects. More importantly, we need to understand who our families are, how and what we do influences the family and the overall idea.

First off, what comes to mind when we think of the word ‘Family’? There are several interpretations: a close-knit unit, a group of loving people, blood-relation. Commonly, we see it as a blood-related group of people that share emotional, physical and financial relations with one another, ranging from three to fifteen people… IN SOME CASES (to be explained in due time), it can be even larger than that! In a modern-day era, the term is mostly subjective in the idea and therefore is quite flexible to suit one’s needs and/or emotions and I couldn’t be happier with this outcome. Regardless of what we are TOLD is the meaning of family, as we get older we develop our own thoughts and opinions, as is natural when we grow up and become more individual. When you think about it, most of us cannot recall where the word family came from (unless you’re a historian or history wiz) and it does get you questioning.

In religious views, family is a sanctity of a married man and women who have procreated offspring, commonly a family of 4. As most of us consider ourselves atheist and agnostic, leaving only the fanatical religious followers keeping up this tradition, we disregard this and create our own versions of families purely based on who we care about. If such an idea of free will and individuality didn’t exist, this slims down adoption rates as well as psychologically supressing our thoughts and emotions. Gay people in particular are supressed by religion and is often seen as immoral to have a relationship with someone of the same gender, which to me is not right because I honestly believe that we can all be good people no matter of who we are dating/courting, or who we are as a person.

Which leads me onto my next point in terms of family- Parents. Does it really matter if a child has two male parents or two female parents? To me, as long as both the parents love eachother and the child, then that is more than enough to keep a happy family household and I would strongly back and lesbian/gay couples rights to adopting a child, because denial of this is denial of our freedom of expression, as well as denial of a safe and healthy living enviroment for the child. I am not saying that Orphanages are bad places, but it’s better and happier for children to find homes with loving parents. On the 9th of June 2010, a writer of pinknews.co.uk called Jessica Geen wrote an article on Gay parenting and the Prejudice at schools for adoptees. The first paragraph of the article goes

“The qualitative research follows the publication of a 17-year study on children brought up by lesbian couples, which found they were happier and had fewer behavioural problems than children brought up by straight parents.”

It is worth a read as the children and teenagers being studied said they were proud of their gay parents and that their families are “special.”

Children of gay parents ‘proud, but need schools to tackle issues’

What I’m trying to address, is that kids are happy with gay parents… In fact most cases would say that they’re happier than with a straight couple. Don’t you see? It’s love and care that make a family, not blood relations or religion. It does not matter who you are or where you’re from, because your family is whoever you want them to be, so long as you love oneanother… And if I remember correctly, one of the commandments says to “love thy neighbour”? So if the church denies gay marriage or gay parenting, then they’re denying one of their most foundational rules. Tell THAT to them!

With this is mind, I come to my third and final point, which I have entitled ‘Friendship Love’. When you have a best friend that you care for so much, that you deem them to be like a sister/brother to you. You feel a certian level of trust and respect from the other person and they’re not even blood-related to you and if the sanctity of the family was meant to stick to old-time traditions, then this “God” wouldn’t give us such thoughts. I am atheist currently and as far as I’m concerned, I can lead a good and happy life without being weighed down by religious rules and nonsense, where the bible is just contradicting with itself since it often states you must make sacrifices/offerings to please God or he will bring down his wrath upon us… And that is just a load of @&!”. Personally, I have 3 friends whom I met over the internet that I have talked to for several years and we’ve shared, pictures, conversations and moments, that I see them as sisters: I care for them and I do my best to support them if they need me. For those who ask me “what if they’re a paedophile?”… Trust me, I have been careful and everyone should be careful on the internet. Regardless of that, I have found people I care about and I now consider them family, no matter of how they dress or what they wear.

So pay attention people, this is important! Family is more than what you may think, it is a bond of love and caring for who people are as a person and nothing else. When we spend time with a certain someone, or certain people and we grow to accept them and sometimes even love them for it. You should not feel ashamed to express who you are and you should always let that special person or people know how you feel about them. If you’re a gay couple, go ahead and adopt since it will make more than just you happy. If you have a best friend who you have cherished forever, let them know how much they mean to you.

As my final statement: “Family is not about blood-relation, but a bond of love one shares with another, regardless of family ties or personal background. Blood may be thicker than water, but you need that water to keep everything flowing.”

(images found on google.images.co.uk)