Finland Metal & Hard Rock Albums of the 2000s - Page 2

Divinity brings together thick guitars, bright keyboards and soaring vocals in a focused Altaria record.

Wound Creations introduces Amoral through rapidly changing guitar riffs, abrupt rhythmic shifts and raw growls at high density.

Once unites heavy guitar, large-scale orchestra and operatic vocal power into a cinematic Nightwish statement.

Reckoning Night brings fast keyboard work, sharp guitars and soaring vocals together in dramatic Sonata Arctica power metal.

Plague-House Puppet Show uses hard guitar, bright keyboards and light-footed vocals to create colorful Twilightning melodic metal.

Wintersun's debut album, from 2004. It was then Jari Maenpaa's solo project, and it was eight years in the making.

Invitation uses fast guitar, glittering keyboards and powerful vocals to make bright, dramatic Finnish power metal.

Far from the Sun keeps heavy guitar underneath softer vocals, expansive keyboards and subdued melody.

Reflections places the cello at the center of both riff and melody, combining its resonance with heavy rhythm and classical tension.

Hate Crew Deathroll throws sharp guitar, urgent keyboards and harsh vocals together at high speed.

HIM's fourth album, from April 2003. Ville Valo has called it the record on which the band found their sound.

A largely covers-based record made alongside the Hanoi Rocks reunion: thirteen songs taking in Eddie & The Hot Rods, X-Ray Spex and Leonard Cohen.

Winterheart’s Guild combines fast-moving keyboards, sharp guitar and soaring vocals into power metal with wide emotional swings.

Elements Pt. 1 places fast guitar, ornate keyboards and soaring vocals inside broader orchestral arrangements.

Elements Pt. 2 keeps the first part’s scale but shifts the focus toward tighter riffs and more direct dramatic melody.

Swallow the Sun's debut album, issued by Firebox Records in 2003. This Finnish death-doom record was made in three weeks.

Jaded combines heavy guitar, cold programming and shadowed vocals to build a melancholic world.

Delirium Veil combines hard guitar, bright keyboards and light-footed vocals in colorful melodic metal.

Twelve Shots on the Rocks reignites Hanoi Rocks’ mix of punk roughness, glam-rock flash and street-rock ease.

A six-track EP released only in Japan: two new songs plus live versions of four earlier ones.

Century Child expands Nightwish’s symphonic reach by joining orchestral scale, heavy guitars and Tarja Turunen’s classically shaped voice.

Rotten Sound's third album, from June 2002. Mieszko Talarczyk of Nasum produced it, and all fourteen songs carry one-word titles.

The Cold White Light uses heavy guitars, sunken melodies and low, melancholic vocals to explore love, death and regret.

Am Universum expands Amorphis beyond a heavy-guitar base with keyboards, saxophone and clean vocals.

Ensiferum's debut album, issued by Spinefarm in July 2001. It is the first record by a band that calls its own music melodic folk metal.

HIM's third album, from August 2001. It came out of an eleven-month production that went badly, and it is the first HIM album with the keyboard player Janne Puurtinen on it.

Moonsorrow's second album, out on 26 November 2001. The title means "of strength and honour", and the record holds six pieces.

Silence locks Sonata Arctica’s fast rhythms, flowing keyboards and Tony Kakko’s high voice into a particularly focused whole.

Epilogue layers gothic-metal darkness with accessible melody in To/Die/For’s characteristic way.

Cult expands Apocalyptica’s cello-led heaviness through more varied and ambitious writing.

Follow the Reaper sharpens Children of Bodom’s fast, melodic death-metal attack.

Wishmaster firmly joins Nightwish’s symphonic imagination to fast, melodic metal.

Crimson by SENTENCED: track list, Spotify player and English liner notes on METAL BOOST.

Infinite presents Stratovarius at a highly polished peak of melodic power metal.