FEARRAGE hails from Finland and "Songs From The Sorrow" is their second EP. Unlike a lot of bands from the country, this one doesn't play any style of Death Metal or Melodic Death.   The band's sound is best described as Thrash/Groove Metal but really they don't have a particular style...straight up Heavy Metal is what I would describe them.

Vocalist Juha sings in a throaty yell, a decent combination of Jamed Hetfield, Matt Heafy, and a less extreme version of MESHUGGAH's Jens Kidman; it is somewhere between clean and rough vocals but it works well for the band's music. As I previously stated the music doesn't stick to one subgenre of music so there is a decent amount of variety across this short four track EP. "The Day When Sun Fell Down," opens with a nice, atmospheric intro highlighted by light keyboard textures and clean guitar.  Afterwards, the rest of the track is thrash influenced riffs a la LAMB OF GOD or SHADOWS FALL.  The chorus is catchy as are the melodic guitar leads.

Second track, "Your Demise," consists of a well done late 90's/early 00's Metalcore style but towards the end the tempo is kicked up a notch with a blistering solo back by extremely speedy rhythm guitar.  The last few riffs of the song are laden with groove and it ends intensely. The hardest hitting and most urgent is "Only Affliction," with equal parts thrash and groove; Kulla's drums are the driving force behind the song with his snare coming on pretty hard throughout.     This is probably the most modern sounding track on the album but, sadly, it doesn't really do much for me.  As I stated, the drums are the saving grace but the song itself doesn't really go anywhere; it is a very "middle of the road" type of track.

The final track, "Those Who Do Not Remember The Past," is easily my favorite on the album.  The beginning is laden with a straight forward Metal attack, the cymbal work and guitars working in tandem to create a stark heaviness.  The song slows down a bit to let some clean vocals in; JUHA is a decent singer and this track shows off his range pretty well. The melody and harmonies after the first verse leads perfectly to a guitar solo.  The whole song as a darker and more tragic atmosphere than the previous three-hopefully their next release contains more tracks like this one.  The first two tracks were solid but this last one actually broke the mold of their own sound and was the true standout for me.

All in all, this is a solid EP; it is hard to judge a band's sound on just four tracks, especially when I didn't care for one of them.  However, the remaining three are more than enough to keep this band on my radar for a future full length.