Band:	Negative
Album:	Sweet & Deceitful
Style:	Glam metal, Suomi metal
Release date:	September 2004

01. Intro
02. Frozen To Lose It All
03. Creeping Inside
04. Locked In The Dark
05. In My Heaven
06. My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue) [Neil Young cover]
07. Neverending Parade
08. L.A. Feeding Fire
09. Until You're Mine [feat. Ville Laihiala]
10. About My Sorrow
11. Secret Forgiveness
12. Angels Won't Lie

Less than a year ago Negative released their debut, "War of Love" through GBFAM Records. And now it's time for the successor, "Sweet & Deceitful", and once again Negative struck big in Finland, the album reached No.1 on the Finnish charts the first week and the first single place 3, that's a exploit not every band manage to do.
But strangely as it sounds, Negative hasn't struck so hard international yet; maybe it's time now?

Not much has happen within the biography since last time, except that Negative added Snack on keyboards, and that has made a quite big change in the music of Negative. Not so they have given up their Emotional Rock (as they describe it), but you can clearly hear that Keyboards has been added and that the music is going against a more usual Finnish sound.

As mention, the sound is a bit different from "War of Love", and it's not only the keyboards, the music is now more mature too, the lyrics are better, the music is better, the guys got more experience.
And because of these facts, this album is even better than the debut, better in all ways.
So I'm not that surprised that this album reached No.1 on the Finnish charts, since this kind of music is so popular in Finland (Why should it otherwise come so many Gothic bands from Finland?).

Another thing I find better with this album is the guest musician, that's no other than Sentenced's own Ville Laihiala, that sings a duet with Jonne on the son "Until You're Mine" (the best song of the album).
But then there is another reason why I holding this album higher than the debut, it's more even.
If you listen to the first album, you'll hear that every other song is good and every other song is that not good.
That's something Negative has done better here, now there are no less good songs, every one is quite equal (that's mean, everyone except those exceptional ones).

I also mention the similarities with HIM in my previous review of Negative. They are still here, even if I think that Negative now starts to move away from that. Jonne shows us that his voice can reach other levels that weren't visible on the debut.
Like in the song with Ville, Jonne almost sounds like Ville in that song (If that's good or bad, judge yourself).

But if I should pick my highlights I have to choose "Until You're Mine", that song is so filled with emotions, and both Ville and Jonne's does a great job. But I have to say that the song is not what I expected from Negative, this one is darker than something they done before.
Also the Neil Young cover "My My/Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) is a killer.

So if you liked the debut, I'm convinced that you'll love this album as much as I do. It has been spinning in my stereo for over 2 weeks, and that's a sign that's worth mention.

Check Out: "Until You're Mine" - Shivers anyone? "My My/Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)", "In My Heaven" & "Creeping Inside".