Finland's Pharaoh Overlord return with this devastating double lp on Aaron Turner and Faith Coloccia's vinyl-only Sige label. Whilst we have many favorite Finns, these guys (and their mothership Circle) are among our very favoritest. Yours too probably, so we imagine these are gonna fly out of here fast.
This Circle sideproject is certainly VERY "circular" here, full of repetitive minimalist vibrations to the max, utter stoner neo-kraut hypnosis for sure, with a heavy metallic undercurrent and some freaky cosmic jazziness to it too. Of the couple most recent previous PO efforts, Lunar Jetman aligns more closely with the space/noise rock of live lp Horn, rather than the "song-ier" classic metal of Out Of Darkness, harking back also to the dark stoner soundscapes of some of their earlier albums as well; but as always, it is its own entity.
Lunar Jetman features six tracks, mostly quite long, sprawling over four album sides, for far more than an hour of slow burning, steady building, all-instrumental Overlord action. The album begins with the insistent gallop of the nearly 11 minute long "Rodent", which almost sounds like Maiden gone motorik! With extra spaceage shoegazey shwooshing and wooshing thrown in. It'll have you totally transfixed before it's even half over. The distortodelic kraut-iness continues amidst the metronymic percussive percolations of the even-lengthier track two, "Palmyra Cali"; then "Cardinal" is a much shorter, blissed out improv-sounding interlude.
That's followed by the 16+ minutes of "Black Horse", at long last a studio version of a composition earlier documented in briefer versions on both PO's 2004 live album The Battle Of The Axehammer, and then again on 2007's Live In Suomi. Here, it begins with much skitter and skree, before hammering into the happy heavy churning riffage we recognize. This one's definitely bound to be a fave of all the Wooden Shjips' fans out there.
Finally, Lunar Jetman delves deep into the dirge, with the two-part, nearly half-hour, massively moody "Cave Of Hair", a detailed, obsessively repetitive soundscape of ominous chuggery, building from quietly brooding near ambient creepy-crawl to metallic majesty...
Another awesome Overlord recording, in other words. And fyi, Lunar Jetman features Faust's Hans Joachim Irmler on keyboards, who has performed with PO previously, appearing on Live In Suomi - and who produced Circle's 2002 Klangbad release, Alotus. Not that PO nor Circle need Irmler to make 'em any krautrockier, they already had that covered!! But this IS plenty krautrocky.
Double lp fancy limited (530 copies) vinyl for now via Aaron Turner's Sige imprint; cd version expected also from Ektro, someday soon we hope...
It's "NWOFHM" in overdrive overload this week, with not one but two new albums from key exemplars of that Circle side project "scene" up there in Finland. The new vinyl-only offering from Steel Mammoth called Radiation Funeral, you'll find reviewed elsewhere this list, and then there's this, Out Of Darkness, the new cd from Pharaoh Overlord. With fists in the air (and tongues possibly not in cheek?) these two releases have really upped the ante regarding the METAL part of the NWOFHM equation.
Quick recap for those out of the loop: Finnish space prog neo-Kraut band (and massive AQ faves) Circle like to dabble in the metal realms, on their own albums and also by means of various side projects, enough of which exist to populate a self-proclaimed, quasi-parodic New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal movement, NWOFHM for short. These bands usually use metal "signifiers" for their own twisted purposes, making music that's as much experimental and pop and prog as it is metal, but done up in leather and spikes basically for fun.
Circle offshoot Pharaoh Overlord was originally more of a stoner rock take on Circle's motorik mesmerism, dark and psychedelic and heavy. But not "metal". Then they did the album entitled #4, which was NWOFHM almost to the point of being "actual" metal (though still totally repetitive and hypnotic a la Circle of course). But #4's follow up, their previous disc to this, Siluurikaudella, was, while we liked it quite a bit, a definite departure, more of a freakout/improv thing, definitely not remotely metal (or NWOFHM).
So for anyone a bit confused by Siluurikaudella, you'll be happy to hear that Out Of Darkness returns PO to headbanging territory, and then some!! Definitely a metal album, and a rockin' one. Well, it starts off with a lovely acoustic guitar intro, "Eyes Of The Pharaoh", but starts rockin' about 43 seconds later, when the title track erupts, total classic metal riffage with Danzig meets Hetfield vocals courtesy of the singer from US stoner metal band Night Horse, who also appears on the disc's killer final track "I Am The Light". He's not the only guest, as Circle's big hero Bruce "Jesters Of Destiny" Duff and his bandmate Frank Meyer from LA sleaze rockers Angus Khan have cameos too, providing some guest vocals and lead guitar on a few of the cuts here as well.
The nearly ten minute "Devastator" demonstrates that Pharaoh Overlord haven't abandoned the "Circular" style of minimalist repetition, that track devastates indeed with its seeming endlessness (which is awesome). Somewhat poppier is the next track, the chugging "Doomsday Mourning", that's got some psychedelic Uriah Heepishness to it, laden with synths, psych soloing, and dramatic vocals. And that's more the norm, this album being really pretty darn catchy throughout, Pharaoh Overlord mixing their '80s metal obsessions with some Teutonic '70s proginess, and whatthefuckever else they desire. Our heads aren't just banging, they're spinning. Turns out they weren't kidding with the song title "We Came To Rock"! Ok, it gets a bit goofy on the two Bruce Duff sung tracks (especially "No Speed Limit") but that's entertaining too, however for the most part this is a REAL metal / hard rock album, or at least sounds that way, being strange rather than silly when it's not full on metal. For fans of Circle, Queen, krautrock, Thor, La Otracina, Blue Oyster Cult, Accept, Judas Priest, Metallica, Steel Mammoth, Destruction, Anvil, Lucifer's Friend, White Boy And The Average Rat Band, uh, and everything else that's awesome.
Oh, if this wasn't cool enough already, love the outer space neon lazer tiger cover artwork!!! Purrfect for the tight ripping soundz within. The cd booklet also contains an interesting quote from R. Buckminster Fuller. Didn't know he was a metalhead.
FYI, there's another new PO album too, vinyl-only effort called Horn, that we're hoping to get soon too. Haven't heard it yet, don't know where it falls on the NWOFHM spectrum...
Our favorite Finnish hypnorock band Circle, and related offshoots, are always both doing the expected, AND the unexpected. Expected, in that in almost all cases, Circle hew to the repetitive, rhythmic, krautrock-inspired "circular" grooves from whence they get their name. Yet, while adhering to that basic concept, they've managed to put out umpteen dozen upon dozen albums that are all completely different... some spacey and pretty, some heavy and riffy, some with Gregorian style chant, some with operatic metallic vokills, and all brilliant (ask anybody, but especially us!). Pharaoh Overlord, one of the more popular and prolific Circle "side projects", with a lineup almost (exactly?) the same as Circle, has pretty much followed the same path. Originally, ostensibly a "stoner rock" version of Circle (which you can definitely hear on the live lp we recently listed), they got even more truly metal with their last album, #4, maybe the ultimate "NWOFHM" statement from the Circle camp.
That said, this new, 5th album from Pharaoh Overlord is way more unexpected than the expected, content-wise!! Totally different from #4 for sure. There's three long, instrumental tracks here, and each of them is quite different too. The disc begins with the 22:33 of "Vesitorni", a seemingly improvised piece that's extremely quiet, abstract, mysterious. Sudden skitter of the drums. Chiming glimmer of the guitars. Shimmering cymbals. Pulsation of the bass. It's almost "onkyo" in its sparse, low-key, quasi-jazz loveliness. Really nice, and really not at all remotely "NWOFHM".
Then, wham! Maybe we shouldn't even warn you. Track two, "Valujuhla" (12:47) erupts with a frenzy of loud, chaotic, freeform freaking-out. Here is where we wonder, is Siluurikaudella the record on which the PO/Circle guys go free jazz? Seems like it. And it kinda makes sense. Up until now, they've been famed for their motorik, locked-in, precise clockwork rhythms. With this, it's like those clockwork gears have come unsprung, gone completely haywire, and everyone's playing everything all at once, anarchy reigns! It had to happen, something had to give. But, then this track too quiets down, and we can tell Pharaoh Overlord still have it under control.
Following that, the eighteen minute "Piirros" takes over the final portion of the disc. It shares some similarities with the first track, staying mostly quiet and abstract. But it's definitely got more of a propulsive groove-shuffle going on underneath. And rather than abstract jazz... it reminds us of an abstract, creaky, cavernous blues. Super moody and dark and weird. Probably our favorite of the three.
So, PO definitely surprised us with this one. Took a short while to get our heads around. But now we're definitely digging it. And think that Circle, Doktor Kettu, Keiji Haino, Nels Cline, Tetuzi Akiyama, even Jandek fans will totally dig it too. Improvised, instrumental, eccentric! Oh yeah.
Most aQ customers by now are familiar with (and fanatic about) both Circle and Pharaoh Overlord. Kind of like Parliament-Funkadelic, the two Finnish groups are more-or-less the same band really, making more-or-less the same kind of music, the Circle-Pharaoh Overlord thang all about repetitive, "circular", psychedelic sounds. Sharing members and a mesmeric M.O., both Circle and Pharaoh Overlord are masters of spacey hypno-rock, often heavy, sometimes "metal", frequently quite WTF?, all of which is what you get here for sure, in both cases, on this pair of vinyl-only live records with similar, sharp cover graphics and the same dang title. Turns out these are the first two in what promises to be a series of "high quality, multi-channel 'live' recordings" under the 6000 km/h banner (a name meant to connote "speed, dynamism and goal-orientedness" according to the tongue-in-cheek corporate jargon employed by the label's press release).
Pharaoh Overlord's 6000 km/h release documents the band's performance at a festival in Turku, Finland, Summer 2014. There's four songs here (one straddling two sides), all of them exclusive "world premieres". Typically it's jazz groups who make live albums that are actually 'new albums' in that sense; rock bands doing live recordings historically tend towards greatest/latest hits collections - not that that's what you get with Circle's 6000 km/h, either, even though they're not (all) new songs on there� Anyway, there's something jazzy about this, and proggy and noisy too, PO sounding both epic and experimental on such cuts as the 16+ minute "No Ota Sitten Kolmekymppia" (that's the one that starts on one side and ends on the other). Groovy, dense, strange...
Oh, and we love that it admits on the sleeve that there are "a couple of overdubs... but who gives a **** anyway!"
Black vinyl is what we've got, limited to 350 copies only!
The Finnish avant-classical duo of pianist Eva Polgar and visual artist Sandor Valy are back with a brilliant postmodern musical reimagining of one of the oldest surviving pieces of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh. This is the duo's third collaboration together and unlike the first two, The Bruegel Variations and The Mondrian Variations, where the scores were defined by visual elements found in the paintings of Breugel and Mondrian respectively, Gilgamesh was conceptualized in a completely different way. The Epic of Gilgamesh was an epic poem from Mesopotamia dating back to the 18th century BC, and chronicles the mythic life and adventures of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk and his companion Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to distract Gilgamesh from oppressing his people. Together they fight monstrous mountain guardians, giant bulls, battle jealous Ishtar, and in the end after Enkidu's violent death, the story chronicles Gilgamesh's desperate search for Immortality and the meaning of life beyond death. The epic was originally discovered carved on twelve stone tablets, and here lovingly reproduced as 12 QRC codes (when scanned, each brings up part of the poem), the duo of Polgar and Valy have created a 12 part musical piece that doesn't seek to illustrate the text as much as to compartmentalize the story into the moods of its integrated characters and the ancient civilization they inhabited. Valy began creating key melody lines for each part which Polgar would elaborate on then give back to him and slowly, through an exchange of female and male composed tropes echoing the back and forth male and female interchanges of Gilgamesh and Ishtar, the piece came to fruition. Gilgamesh finds in itself a companion to their earlier work, in the duo's penchant for minimalist composition and complex rhythmic structures, this time adding instrumentation of clarinets and violins, zithers, kettle drums and chaotic horns to the fray, channeling not only Philip Glass, but John Zorn at times as well. Epic indeed!
Another entry in the NEW WAVE OF FINNISH HEAVY METAL, aka NWOFHM, comes modern Finnish thrashers Ranger, who not unsurprisingly, don't sound modern at all, and in fact, even though the label describes them as thrash, a lot of the time, they almost sound more like classic eighties true metal, the title track opens with the sort of epic harmonized guitar majesty, you just don't hear anymore, and then the band launches into some ridiculously over the top drumming, a barrage of pick slides, and BAM, chugging riffage, blasting beats, soaring divebomb leads. At this point, the sound is definitely thrash, we're hearing lots of early Anthrax for sure, even a little Slayer too, but Ranger are way poppier, the grunted sung/spoken vox punctuated with wild falsetto wails, the eighties vibe is huge, the drums all reverbed and boomy, the song flitting from lightning fast punked out thrash, to chugging classic metal and back again, and then of course some wild soloing, dueling epic shreddery, for folks our age, this is like musical manna from heaven (or hell?). And as yet always, especially with Finnish bands, and from the Ektro camp in particular, we're faced with the nagging possibility, that these guys could be taking the piss. But really, even if they are, they're so good, it hardly even matters, total eighties heavy metal radness, that really sounds like it could be from back in the day. The serious metal majesty and fierce metallic fury balanced by plenty of hooks and some serious poppiness, as well as some serious goofiness (but then what great metal bands didn't have some of that? Venom anyone?). The vocal delivery is awesome and ridiculous, more spoken than sung, but delivered like a true metal warrior, you can almost imagine both his hands holding up the invisible oranges, and of course lots of trilled 'r's, and let's not forget the sound effects, like the revved car engine when the vocalist sings the line "V8 engine screams!!"
But fuck it, metalheads who treasure the golden age of metal (that's the eighties btw) and can't get enough of that sound, this is about as good, and ridiculous, and amazing as it gets. Especially what might be the most epic track here, the closer "Knights Of Darkness" (featuring the aforementioned revving engine sound effects), a galloping tour-de-force, with some amazing harmonized guitars, killer shredding leads, and a vocal performance, that had us once again, thinking it could be Mika from Circle in metal drag. So goddamn great. Death to all but metal!
You want a shock to your skull? You could slam your head into the wall, or hit it with a hammer... or, better yet (and more entertaining), just slap on this 7" by Finnish ragers RANGER, whose song "Shock Skull" is a ripping onslaught of underground thrash madness, in the style of '80s Slayer, Metallica and other masters of nasty speed metal Satan worship. Distorted guitars, pounding drums, shrieking vocals, widdly solos, yeeeaaaah!! It's a fine follow up to their Knights Of Darkness 12" from last year, again released on Ektro label's vinyl imprint Full Contact, so it's got the Circle seal of approval - though Ranger are as far as we know are a REAL metal band, not the more conceptual kind like the so many "NWOFHM" side projects of those Circle guys. The flipside, "Omen Of Doom", is another neckbreaker. All in all, seven inches of old school shreddin', slaying stuff with a ton of youthful energy to it.
Limited to 1000 copies, colored vinyl (500 blue and 500 green, they're sealed so we aren't sure what each one we have is).
The Ektro label does it again. Another rad reissue, this the debut album from legendary eighties NYC noise rockers Rat At Rat R, originally released in 1985 and pretty much impossible to find since. It somehow sounds right at home on Ektro, and even TWENTY SEVEN YEARS later, this stuff sounds so bad ass. Think Cop Shoot Cop, Circle X, Swans, Pussy Galore, Live Skull, Sonic Youth, these guys were born of that same scene, but their sound is definitely all their own. Gloomy and gothic, noisy and chaotic, the drumming INSANE, wild and splattery and relentless, the guitars angular and jagged, the bass thick and buzzy, the vocals a snarly dramatic croon, the band capable of switching from wild tribal noisy freakouts, to churning mathy noise rock crush, to an almost gloom pop, to seriously heavy almost metallic bombast, lots of the songs reminding us at times of the Wipers, or Comsat Angels, or other purveyors of gloomy rock, and of course all the other bands of the time these guys shared stages with (and probably drugs, or at least rehearsal spaces).
The gloomy gothy vibe definitely has a sort of death rock thing going on, reminding us also of the stuff that was going on around the same time on the other coast, the Scream club, Abecedarians, Kommunity FK, but a way heavier noiser version of that, lurching, lumbering, grinding heaviness, tribal drumming, clouds of feedback, strange percussion, tangled melodies, and actual songs, these were not just blasts of noisiness, Rat At Rat R definitely had a knack for dark brooding songcraft, the fact that they chose to render the resulting songs in wild squalls of noise rock pummel and swirly psychedelic gloomines, only made it that much cooler. Reissue contender of the year for SURE.
Finland's weirdo minimalist black metallers Ride For Revenge might just be in the running for most aQ Records Of The Week, especially if you count RfR electronic offshoot Will Over Matter, and even moreso if you consider the fact that even if we didn't make one of their records a ROTW, we thought about it, and likely wanted to, and probably didn't for some non musical reason, like having to get them from Finland, or ordering a bunch and selling most of them before we even get a chance to review/list it, and really, in retrospect, not sure why we didn't just institute permanent/perpetual Record Of The Week status on these guys. What we're getting at, is even though this is NOT a Record Of The Week this time around, it basically IS. And will always be, cuz if any band demanded the slavish worship of the aQ crew it's these guys, who manage to take a genre we already love, and transform it into something that barely sounds like that genre at all, and yet somehow makes us love it even more.
This latest batch of jams is another black-dirge / noise-rock wallop, this trio delivering some ultra primitive heaviness, with some of the sickest, grittiest, gnarliest guitar buzz ever, not to mention thick, organ dissolving low end, and chaotic, shambolic, caveman drumming of the highest order, all wound up into extended dirges that play like krautrock melted down into a brew as black as pitch, then reconstituted with some sort of ancient black magic, the resulting lumbering sonic ritualism is as mesmerizing as it is terrifying, the sound in constant flux, whether it's stumbling black metal primitivism, doom-ed tarpit creep, psychedelic blacknoize, or wild, thrashing metal-punk, it all bleeds into one massive, epic, demonic sonic sprawl, in fact, so much so that song titles, and even song breaks seem superfluous, nobody's gonna grab this and think to themselves, let's throw on "The Fog Is Green And Pungent" (okay full disclosure, we actually did!), no this is a fully immersive experience, this is the sort of black bog filth you're meant to luxuriate in, to get lost in, to let wash over you, and pull you under, just surrender, let the churning molasses riffage and pounding dirge-drummage ooze into your every orifice, and transform you from the inside out, headphones on, you become a shambling, blackened acolyte to these mysterious priest of blacknoise/occult rock ritualism, and suddenly it's transcendent, the sound becomes shape, the shape becomes divine, the underworld rises up and swallows the surface dwellers whole, and the soundtrack to this apocalypse becomes, a gnarled, filth encrusted thing of grim black beauty, and we honor this epochal convergence, by sacrificing ourselves, and as our souls wither and die, we become one with these ancient spirits, approaching the black gates of the netherworld, we all join together, a hulking black shape, horned and fiery, and for eternity, we Ride For Revenge!!!!
We talk a lot about how weird Finland is, so before we go any further, let us apologize to the majority of Finland who to be fair are probably not weird at all. Now that we've got that out of the way, HOLY SHIT! Is there no end to the amazing and damaged and demented music coming out of Finland. We're beginning to think not.
The latest evidence comes in the form of the brand new full length from Ride For Revenge, who we first heard a while back on a split with fellow countrymen Torturium, their half of the split a downtuned black trudge, like Winter or diSEMBOWELMENT but with that impossible to describe Finnish something that transforms everything into some special sort of what-the-fuck. Creepy synths, plodding drums, grinding guitar and harsh vocals, not exactly black metal, not in the traditional sense at least, but most definitely metal.
On King Of Snakes however, the band have gotten even weirder, and distinctly less metal, but no less heavy. Supposedly there are guitars, but to our ears it just sounds like just drums and lots and lots of bass. Each song a plodding doomic lurch, the drums pounding out a simple rhythm, the riff repeating over and over, most songs with just a single part, very mesmerizing and hypnotic. Like a caveman Circle or a guitarless Gore, these guys just bash out endlessly cycling looped low end and killer crushing doom drum pound. The vocals are a super affected gurgling growl, not in the death metal sense, instead, super dramatic, intoning unspeakable evils, a rumbling demonic baritone, peppered with the occasional super delay drenched goat metal grunt.
Some tracks also have cool creepy keyboards as well, that add all sort of mood and texture, and it's not cheesy metal synth either, it's all strange analog buzz, a sort of krautrocky blur draped over the endlessly pounding groove.
Ride For Revenge are another one of those black metal bands, who seem to be black metal more out of pedigree than sound, but even though this doesn't sound like metal, it is most definitely black. It sounds a bit like Godheadsilo jamming with Finnish alchemical dronelords Tiermes, with the occasional injection of Hawkwinded FX and SUNN-drenched rumble, mysterious and murky swaths of throbbing low end thrum wrapped around the drums like some evil warlock's cloak.
Imagine if Amphetamine Reptile was a black metal label... then these guys would be Halo Of Flies... Most definitely one of our new favorite 'black metal' records...
The thing about Finnish black metal weirdos Ride For Revenge, is that really, they are hardly even black metal. Hell, hardly metal at all. Instead, they always seemed to traffic in a mysterious low slung, sludgy abstract blackened rhythmic minimalism that reminded us of Circle and Aluk Todolo way more than Darkthrone or Beherit. And then there's RfR offshoot Will Over Matter, who take that same sort of abstract rhythmic weirdness and harness it to primitive electronics, and have created a sort of tripped out blackened power electronics. So of course we were super excited for a new Ride For Revenge, and were expecting another disc of twisted rhythmic churn, or something similar, but what we were not expecting was THIS. After a truly strange intro, which is essentially just a Speak & Spell toy emitting all those 8bit bleeps and bloops and wreathed in echo and delay, which had us imagining maybe RfR had moved toward Will Over Matter sonically, but then when the first song proper kicked in, we were blown away. Metal. And we mean METAL. Dirgey and sludgey and super distorted. Right out of the gate, the band erupt into some seriously corrosive blasts of full on blast beat-ed GRIND, in between which, the band churn and lumber, the guitars filthy and crumbling with blackened distortion, the vocals a glass gargling gurgle, the drums a simple dirgey pound, so we were prepared for the ban's return to full on primitive blackness, but then out of nowhere, in swoop all manner of weird warbly synths, and tolling bells, the whole song transformed into some sort of woozy avant buzz drenched doomic dirge, it's pretty ruling.
But then by track two, it's right back to the primitive bash and pound, the distortion even more blown out and in the red, the band sounding a bit like a blackened Brainbombs, which is not at all a bad thing, the songs peppered with ridiculous twisted drug addled guitar leads, super effected crooned gothic vox, some totally fucked up and freaked out Butthole Surfers style vocal garble, cool thick layered harmonies, that add a sort of warped majesty to some of the tracks, and at least one blast of weird bellowed, strident sermonizing beneath a cloud of in-the-red white noise skree.
There are a couple tracks that strip away some of the crumble and buzz, and harken back to the more purely rhythmic RfR of old, but those moments are brief, the band quickly slipping back into their woozy sea sick doom-sludge churn, but even then, pretty much every stretch of seemingly pure raw blackened doomic primitivism, is in fact seriously fucked up, whether that fucked upness is in your face, or buried way below the surface, it's there, and it keeps Under The Eye firmly rooted in whatever fucked Finnish tradition RfR oozes from...
Finland's Fonal label has brought us a lot of favorites, that's for sure -- Islaja, Kiila, Paavoharju, Shogun Kunitoki, and more. So of course we were quite curious about their latest release, from a band called Risto. Here's the informative blurb we were provided with that was supposed to describe what Risto's all about:
"Leevi & the Leavings in the city, Ville Leinonen in handcuffs, Kauko Royhka in self-pity, Kari Peitsamo as a smart person. Risto brings back that self-esteem, naivity and reality that died with Gosta Sundgvist. Have you already heard what they whisper around Tampere?"
Hmmm. Not being that hip nor Finnish nor both, that doesn't help a whole lot, does it? Well let's just give it a listen and see if we can figure out this Risto. Track one, "Rakkauden Rock" launches this album out of the gate with an uber-distorted rockin' basher, the band coming off as something like a Finnish language version of The Cramps!! Not what we expected exactly, but pretty cool. But then the raucous punkabilly of that song immediately gives way to the placid loveliness of "Auringon Prinsessa", all mellow and melodic. But with track three we're back to the energetic and uptempo... and track four, "Discopallo", is downright funky! But following that, the gentle "Pikkoravat" drifts back to mellow moodiness. What gives? We don't know. Crazy Finns is our default answer. The important thing is, we like it!! Risto veer from the noisy and punk to the sweet and lush, and it's all nice and catchy and weird and fun, songs influenced by no wave and doo wop and whatever else strikes their fancy, sounding like Aavikko's "monkey jazz" one moment, a lullaby the next. With all the lyrics in their native tongue, we can't tell you what the songs are actually about, but we're enjoying their spirited, schizophrenic music regardless. Another, atypical, fab Fonal release!
Finland. Fonal. Two words that begin with F that tend to indicate music we might be interested in!
In our review of singer and keyboardist Risto Yliharsila and his namesake band's previous album for the Fonal label, Aurinko Aurniko Plaa Plaa Plaa, we mentioned how it was hard to figure 'em out, 'cause they veered song-to-song from, like, uptempo frantic psychobilly rockin' to lush lullaby-like pop... we basically said "crazy Finns, but we like it", natch! This new album is no less confusional, and also no less enjoyable. Of course, not knowing the language makes this seem all that more odd to us. Yet it's still something that we feel could end up being your favorite new (Finnish indie) pop album despite having no idea what the catchy song now stuck in your head is about.
A lot of the time this may give you the vague idea you're listening to some familiar classic rock album from the '70s, but translated into Finnish. Or, actually, more like selections from several albums, since it's all so eclectic and all over the place. There's burning blasts of guitar distortion, groovy organ, cinematic synths, sad piano ballads, garagey stomp... 10 songs in 33 minutes, that we'd imagine would appeal to fans of Sweden's Dungen, who also maybe like weirder Finnish stuff like Aavikko and Ratto Ja Lehtisalo.
Jussi Lethisalo can never be accused of not following his weird and warped muse. Whether it's in his band Circle, who while remaining rooted to a particular sound, have offered up pretty much every iteration / permutation of that sound imaginable, or in any of his many other groups, whether it be Pharaoh Overlord, Doktor Kettu, Steel Mammoth, Ektroverde, Grumbling Fur, Lehitsalofamily (a group he formed with his parents!), Split Cranium, Ratto Ja Lehtisalo, we could go on, but you get the drift. And Jussi's Ektro label is no different, while mainly focused on releasing records by any/all of the above mentioned bands, Ektro also released records by legendary Finnish punks Death Trip, weirdo Finnish experimentalist Keuhkot, legendary krautrockers Faust, '80s LA metallers Jesters Of Destiny, '70s Finnish prog rockers Haikara, Argentinean stoner rock outfit Los Natas, weirdo Japanese metal outfit Quest For Blood, Finnish heavy metallers Solitaire, legendary hard rocking muscleman Thor and now the oddly named Shaved Women, a noise rock / dirge punk outfit from St. Louis, who definitely channel classic pig fuck heaviness though Black Flag punk and AmRep noise rock. The bass is thick and corrosive, the caveman riffing is caustic and blown out, the drumming loose limbed and chaotic, the vocals a throat shredding bark, feedback everywhere, the band wild and unhinged, the sound shifting from downtuned dirgery to frantic punk pound, the label namedrop Jesus Lizard and Drunks With Guns, the latter seeming much more applicable, but definitely the sort of noisy filth that would appeal to fans (like us!) of Violent Students, Twin Stumps, Drunkdriver, Rusted Shut. Eight songs in seventeen minutes, chaotic hardcore infused punksludge that KILLS. Also included are five bonus live tracks, that make the band sound even more gloriously blown out and noise drenched.
Wow!!! Most loyal AQ customers are pretty aware of our total love and adoration of almost all things Finnish, especially pretty much everything released on Finnish label Fonal. They just have not done us wrong yet. Islaja, Kemialliset Ystavat, Paavoharju, Es, the list goes on and on. And while for the most part their releases focus on the more murky free folk side of Finnish underground rock they have proven to be a label that isn't just about one 'sound' but instead are simply about beautiful music. Period. Whether it's random ethereal forest folk, dreamy drifty swooning ambience, or crunchy chaotic tribalistic clatter. Their latest release, from the Helsinki quartet Shogun Kunitoki, is further proof to that effect, and dare we say this might even be the greatest thing Fonal has released. Some of you may be shouting IMPOSSIBLE! And under different circumstances we'd be right there with you. But just listenening to Tasankokaiku has us thinking not only is it possible, it's damn near for certain. Color! So much vibrant color just bursting out of Shogun Kunitoki's instrumental onslaught. It starts out on fire and every song and sound just feeds the flame. It's almost as if Steve Reich and Terry Riley raised a child weaned on the BBC Radiophonic experiments, a young Rick Wakeman who grew up listening to the fuzzy guitarscapes of M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas... and the dreamy and propulsive instrumental jams of Stereolab, and thus cultivated a totally informed yet unique outlook and approach to music and music making. The sounds on Tasankokaiku are triumphant and assured, flickering then bursting, warm and so totally alive! Knowing how to perfectly use repetition to build momentum and then suddenly blast off to sparkling spaces that make you feel like you're being spirited away to a place that you've never been to but have always dreamed about. A sparkling glistening land of thick warm keyboards, hypnotic prog laced krautrockiness, Neu-infused soundscapes, basically a world populated by all the sounds that drive us wild. This is another one of those rare records that is an across the board unanimous AQ favorite. Everyone who works here loves it. We all hear different things too, besides the above mentioned bands, Andee hears bits of Goblin and Zombi and Heldon, Allan hears hints of Aavikko and Cluster and Circle, Irwin noticed a little Broadcast and even some Raymond Scott, but no matter what you hear, or what shades of sound reveal themsleves to you, the sum is SO much greater than its parts. A gloriously dense and warm world of fuzzy sound that we just can't stop listening to. No matter what music you've been obsessed with lately, this is one of those special records that somehow trumps whatever it is, straight to the top of your listening pile, elbowing it's way past all the other discs in your collection right into your cd player where it will effortlessly fend off any other records wanting to get in there. It's that good.
It's been over three years since we made Shogun Kunitoki's debut our Record Of The Week, which was just about the same time we fell deeply in love with this Finnish group's unique approach to songcraft, most noticeably using analog electronics to create dizzying and melodic songs that ensorcell and enthrall as they burst with color and dynamic flair.
This follow up picks right up where that amazing debut left off. So full of urgency and melody. Taking cues from minimalists like Reich and Glass and infusing a catchy intensity, reminiscent of M83's Dead Cities Read Seas & Lost Ghosts. There is a bombastic overload that grabs a hold of your imagination and lets it run wild amidst its bold and immaculately crafted popscapes. Songs that demand, command and pleasure all of your sensations. Shogun Kunitoki are able to make organs, ring modulators, and oscillators sound both classic and futuristic. Imagine a huge church with a high ceiling and stained glass windows, jammed with massive and ornate organs, while members of Broadcast, Stereolab and Black Moth Super Rainbow rock out on a grandiose Rick Wakeman like setup blasting out sounds that bring joy and ecstasy to all in the congregation.
Shogun Kunitoki are one of those rare bands that you can really get anyone into. Prog freaks, electro heads, pop lovers, psych fanatics, 20th century composer aficionados, experimental music fans, there's something for just about everyone in the dense and dizzying sounds that they create. Simply stunning!
Pay attention, this may be confusing. First, look at the garish/ridiculous cover of this. A photoshopped (?) picture of a big, half-naked, long haired screaming man being tortured with a circular saw by a woman (?) in a spiky black wig. Spandex, leather, bullet belts, a toilet (with a foot sticking out?) are also part of the scene. Then take into account that this was released by Jussi of Circle's Ektro label, home of the NWOFHM (New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal, which isn't really heavy metal, not exactly - bands like Steel Mammoth, Krypt Axeripper and sometimes Pharaoh Overlord). So, is this yet another slice of NWOFHM weirdness? You might think so.
Nope, it's an ACTUAL Finnish heavy metal band. Nobody from Circle is in this group. And it's not even their first album (Jussi told us about these guys a while ago, and Andee and Allan even tracked down copies of one their previous albums, Invasion Metropolis, for themselves on his recommendation). They're the real deal, they've been around since 1995! But they're still somehow in the same tongue in cheek, awesomely absurd vein as the NWOFMH, just more "pro" sounding, nothing but metal, and maybe not a joke. And it's on Ektro, so of course we've got it. And we'd want it anyway, 'cause Solitaire play utter '80s sounding speed metal, sounding like Swedish retro metallions Wolf gone way over the top, with less taste but more of a sense of humor. Or even thrashier (and trashier) version of Judas Priest's OTT classic Painkiller.
It's all a bit chaotic and exhausting, a dense overdose of adrenaline and pure metal madness. Their frantic songs are packed with peals of guitar shred, hyperactive headbangin' riffs, Iron Maidenesque gallop, and screamin', screechin' vocals. Our favorite song titles here: "Rat Studded Maniac", "Leather Scream", and "I'm A Schizo (And So Am I)".
It's obvious why Jussi likes 'em. Us too.
Finnish fusion on Ektro!
As if we needed any more proof that Finland is and was a weird and wonderful place, producing some of the most far out sounds we've ever heard. It's no secret we have a thing for Finnish music, but c'mon, every record we hear, like this one for example, a reissue of one recorded in 1970(!!!) just proves over and over that Finland were always way ahead of the underground rock curve. Or behind it. Either way, the Finns have been blowing minds for 40 years now. (Remember that Psychedelic Phinland comp? There was a Sperm track on that...)
Sperm was the project of a fella named Pekka Airakinsen, and consisted of him creating gorgeously abstract and haunting dronescapes and twentieth century style classical sprawls, constructed from looped guitars, feedback, primitive samples, and various found sounds and invented techniques, the results are fantastic. Dark shimmering fields of suspended tones, of tripped out psychedelic delay, of deep undulating low tones, thick, buzzing rumbles, jazzy horns, chaotic squalls of skronk and skree, No Neck style rhythmic workouts, tons of space, very dark and moody and mysterious. Minus the first half of side two, which features lots of horns and fractured jazz-isms (titled coincidentally "Jazz Jazz"), the rest of the record plays out like something that could have come out on a cd-r this year, seriously genius free noise abstract dronescaping that pretty much puts the current crop of noisemakers to SHAME.
An exact reproduction of the original, with thick paste on, silkscreened sleeves, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!! Unfortunately already out of print. We only have 5 or 6, most likely the last copies we'll see.
ATTENTION CIRCLE OBSESSIVES! And Finnish underground rock freaks, heck we might as well include Hydra Head nerds and Isis nuts, this one is for all of you. Well, seventeen of you at least. That's as many copies as we could get of the debut single from this new band featuring Jussi from Finnish hypnorockers Circle (among others) as well as Aaron Turner from Isis / Hydra Head Records, as well as one of the guys from Steel Mammoth. And considering that pedigree it sounds pretty much like you'd imagine. Or at least how you wished it would sound. Cranium splitting heaviness for sure. Pounding drums, kick ass riffs, massive HEAVY production, some seriously crusty punk blowouts woven into more metallic chug and crunch, peppered with wild squiggly metal shred freakouts, and bizarre echo drenched vocals, that make this sound very Circle-like indeed. Epic and melodic, a little like Turbonegro gone NWOFHM (that's New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal btw). A killer teaser for the upcoming full length.
The flipside finds the A side reworked by none other than noise maestro Daniel Menche, who takes all the punk and metal and blurs it and stretches it into smeared gristly walls of pulsing drone-noise, the various elements still present, but looped and layered and all tangled up into thick undulating sheets of white noise drenched rhythmic chaos, droned out and mesmerizing, the vocals in particular transformed into a haunting keening high end tone, woven into a hazy grey soft focus blurpunk drift. Super rad! And again SUPER LIMITED, not sure how many were pressed, but we got SEVENTEEN of them, and that's all we'll ever get, so get yourself one before they're gone!
A few weeks ago we listed the debut, limited edition 7" single from Finnish/American hardcore hypno-punk supergroup Split Cranium. That was the teaser for this here Hydra Head full length, which includes that single's A side (the B side was a Daniel Menche remix) "Scepters To Rust", along with seven other (mostly) short sharp shocks of this band's noisy, gnarly, D-beat driven loud/fast attack. Featuring our pals Aaron Turner (Mamiffer, Isis, House Of Low Culture, etc.) and Jussi Lehtisalo (Circle, Pharoah Overlord, Steel Mammoth, etc. etc.) along with another of the guys who plays with Jussi in Steel Mammoth. Here's what we said about that track on the single: "Cranium splitting heaviness for sure. Pounding drums, kick ass riffs, massive HEAVY production, some seriously crusty punk blowouts woven into more metallic chug and crunch, peppered with wild squiggly metal shred freakouts, and bizarre echo drenched vocals, that make this sound very Circle-like indeed." Well, a Circle-like version of aggro crusty HC punk anyway (if you've got Circle's Panic cd from a while back, you've had a taste of this). And that pretty much goes for this whole album, starting from the 1:47 blast of "Little Brother", Split Cranium cranking out the raw distorted punkrock in race-to-the-finish, fist-in-your-face fashion. None of the first three tracks break the 2 minute mark, in fact, they get shorter and shorter. But then, with "Blossoms From Boils", the band starts to groove a little more, that's where the Turbonegro-doing-NWOFHM comparison we made in our 7" review comes in. They stretch that one out to almost 5 minutes, and as cranium-splitting headaches go, it's a darn catchy one. A couple tracks further along, we come to "Black Blinding Plague", a track that's about 50 percent just feedback, before the crush and churn and sore throat vokills come in and the party really starts. No wonder they got noisician/droneologist Daniel Menche to do that remix! (Though we wonder, was Merzbow not available?). And then a song called "Yellow Mountain" gets to gallopin', upping the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" quotient while also bringing in some soaring, clean, chant-like vocals (mixed under/above the gruff shouty ones). Beginning to hear some early Circle here, circa Meronia, but more punked out for sure. That awesome headbanger is followed by the album's grand finale, the 8+ minute "Retrace The Circle". It takes the sound of "Yellow Mountain" and gets more epic and Isis-y with it, building into grand spaced out drone heaviness and ending with a totally distorted noise flourish. Wow. We're sold.
For a project such as this, with key members living many time zones apart, who probably spend more time emailing each other than they ever get to spend jamming together in the same practice space, it's damn convincing. But then, we'd expect nothing less from Jussi and Aaron, et. al. And while Circle and Isis fans should of course be interested in this, we feel Split Cranium is good enough to garner fans on their own merits. If we'd never heard of Circle or Isis or Steel Mammoth, we'd still be digging Split Cranium's freaked out HC.
Cd version comes in a nice oversized digipack sleeve, & there's also vinyl but we weren't able to get enough to list this week, hopefully more will show up soon...
Following close on the heels (hooves? no that's not right either, what do you call mammoth feets anyway?) of Steel Mammoth's Radiation Funeral lp from earlier this year, comes another vinyl-only slab of "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" madness from this Circle side project. On Nuclear Rebirth, as with their previous lp, Steel Mammoth are indeed a bona fide metal mutation, not merely a poppier Circle in old school leather 'n' spikes drag. "Punkmetal nightmare" is what they claim to conjure on this album, and they're quite accurate in that self-assessment! Nihilistic, nonsensical, noisy, "nuck-leeyr" thrashing and bashing is what you get here, along with more awesome comic bookish cover art featuring their horned and helmeted mascot, and the usual confusional album credits.
It's irradiated '80s speed trash-thrash action at its bizarre best, twelve trax with such OTT titles as "The Dark Behind The Dark", "Hate Medicine Lucifer", and "Undead Facts, Now". Wha? Well, one can debate if Steel Mammoth's non sequitur laden NWOFHM style is parody or not, but if you are banging your head (and we think you will be) then they've won the debate regardless.
However, we should point out that elsewhere on this very list, we've got the Alternative Tentacles reissue of Voivod's 1984 demo, and we respectfully submit that anyone buying Nuclear Rebirth should think about also purchasing To The Death 84 as well. We're pretty sure the Steel Mammoth guys would be super stoked to see both items in your cart...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This being Circle side-project Steel Mammoth's 4th disc, its mere existence pretty much answers the question about how serious they are, or not. Or maybe just creates new questions. If they're entirely tongue-in-cheek, then it's a really elaborate joke. If it's not a joke, then they're insane. Either way, we love Steel Mammoth! As always, they claim to be crusaders of the New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal, it says NWOFHM in big letters in the cd booklet. Where you'll also find some remarkable photos of the band cavorting around a campfire, or at least we think it's the band, though we're pretty sure that this makes 'em the first ever metal act to include a proudly pregnant lady in their ranks, decked out in what appears to be black leather heavy metal maternity wear! Meanwhile, one of the men is posing in a horned helm, massive and metal, apparently handcrafted, that looks very (ridiculously) medieval indeed.
So, Steel Mammoth are certainly bizarre. And silly, and Finnish, and, yeah, metal. Metal but not quite HEAVY metal. Steel Mammoth have a lighter touch for the most part. Sure, there's some distortion - but not always. The vocals are hardly ever, maybe never screamed, usually delivered in a weird rolling-r drawl, lazy and sinister. Heck half the time it sounds more like some kind of indie-rock pop, but all the awesome and not so subtle metal signifiers that infest the music and lyrics make it so much BETTER. But we probably don't need to tell you all this, if you're like us you have all their other discs already.
Nuclear Ritual, not to be confused with their debut ep Nuclear Barbarians, or for that matter their first album Atomic Mountain, is another killer set of tunes all right, catchy and confusional, from rousing opener "The Shakall" onwards. Some -titles- could be "ordinary" metal songs ("Sacred Death", "Cerebral Acid", "King Of The Damned", sure) but others would obviously be unacceptable to most metal bands ("Gargantuan Boom Boom" being the worse offender). And when one listens, none are ordinary. Some aren't even at all metal (the bulk of title track "Nuclear Ritual" is a meandering murky psych instrumental sorta in the mode of "Commando Leopard" from Atomic Mountain). Most of the tracks are kind of a hybrid of metal/not metal, like "Mammoth Sun Bacteria", which is sunny all right, in that it sounds like Iron Maiden gone bubblegum, bright and bouncy. Elsewhere, though, there is some convincingly authentic metal guitar soloing, and the distorted vocals on "Sacred Death" are almost scary. And that's the genius of Steel Mammoth, those vocals fit there just a perfectly as do the Doorsy Jim Morrison stylings that pop up on the track "Atomic Chainsaws".
Oh, and we've got to mention the last song, "Extinction", 8+ minutes long, boasting a lumbering stoner doom riff a la Witchcraft or Jex Thoth. The song eventually morphs into an extended lysergic jam worthy of Circle in its krautiness, with a bassline that Rick Rubin woulda loved on Bloodsugarsexmagic, that never seems like it will end and when it does you'll want to start it again... With results like this, Steel Mammoth are doing something right, even if they're playing metal "wrong". And anyway, when Japan's Metalucifer can make albums wherein every single song title includes the words "Heavy Metal", and still be taken (sort of) seriously, what is and what isn't a joke?
All in all, another highly entertaining, highly radioactive, album from the truly unique entity (well, along with all the other incestuous NWOFHM acts) that is Steel Mammoth!!
While these guys started out as a Circle side project (and not such a serious one, at that, judging by their name), by now they've definitely become their own entity indeed, with their own following. Whether they're "serious" or not remains an open question, but with our Finnish friends, such things are almost impossible to determine anyway. They're all pretty crazy up there in Finland. What IS possible to determine is, that Steel Mammoth rules. This is their fourth full-length (vinyl-only this time, sorry cd folks) and it's another unique slab of Steel Mammoth's "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" stylings... which, of course, isn't always all that heavy metal, actually. Well, ok, it LOOKS metal, in the most awesomely cartoonish way possible. And metal is part of their sound, sure. But so is some sort of weird alt pop. Well you know that already 'cause if you're an AQ customer, you're probably already a Steel Mammoth fan.
However, this new album, Radiation Funeral, might just be Steel Mammoth's most metal attack yet. PUNKmetal at any rate. Two sides, nine songs, 1/2 hour, utter "nuck-leeyr" mayhem, a record filled with "unglued screaming, harrowing guitars, violent drumfire and apocalyptic bass pollution" as they say. And yeah, it IS pretty thrashy and trashy, Steel Mammoth finally letting their helmeted skullface mascot rage with the likes of Motorhead's Snaggletooth. The vocals are shouty, mean, gargled. The songs rumble with heavy riffing, the guitars dirty and distorted, drums bashing away with abandon. You could probably play this for your most 'truest' metal buds, the ones with band backpatches on their faded denim jackets, and convince 'em it's something dragged from the depths of the European underground circa '86, some sub-Sodom speed metal German budget band or something. Maybe. Anyway it's cool to hear Steel Mammoth (aka Circle, mostly) really, really indulge their most metallic urges here. It's a headbanger, all right. Fans of the likes of Speedwolf, and heck maybe even Kvelertak, should really dig this.
And we give 'em props for one of their best more metal-than-thou song titles yet, "Deck Of Wild Cards". Another good one is "Endless Wolf". We figure they get drunk and try to come up with ridiculous/awesome metal titles like those, then write the songs. Who knows? It works. Check out their disturbing/amusing video for the catchy/chaotic "Torture" here on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmhIa-AcFdo&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
The Steel Mammoth is back! Clanking across the frozen Finnish tundra, bellowing mightily... well no, not quite. This 'New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal' project from members of AQ faves Circle is not exactly what you might expect (unless you've heard them before). Despite the Satanic/Barbaric cover graphics, with cartoon death's heads grimacing in horned helmets in front of a glowing pentagram, and the various other oh-so-metal signifiers like the lyrics, song titles, stage names, etc., Steel Mammoth's unique brand of "metal" doesn't sound all that metal, though it sure is strange. These guys call it NWOFHM. In our review of their first full-length, we coined the term NWOFWTF? to describe 'em. Maybe it is a parody, but if so they take their joke pretty seriously (this is their 2nd full-length after all).
Ok, if you haven't heard 'em, but have heard Circle, imagine that band in leather and spikes (which they are known to wear anyway), having been exposed to strange drugs and radiation, as well as repeated spins of records by The Cult, Manilla Road, Voivod, uh, Dire Straits, the new Darkthrone, and Judas Priest's earliest, more psychedelic stuff (Rocka Rolla!). Then imagine something totally different as well. Right from the start they are deliberately NOT particularly heavy, playing boogie-metal riffs, yes, but in such a laid back, mellowed out fashion it's ridiculous, and ridiculously catchy. They do rock out a bit more on track two, "Black Gold Tyrant", picking up the pace further on the likes of "Steel Factor" and "Nuclear Gyration" (the latter really kicking up some heavily-effected dust), but those tracks are pretty poppy too.
Meanwhile, Steel Mammoth's "radiation rock" is adorned with drawled vocals, delivering amazing absurd lyrics that must be tongue in cheek - informing us that "flesh is weak, metal is forever" and singing lines like "crystal daybreak in the valley of blood/bone and steel crash forever non-stop/heads keep on rollin', battlecries die/corpses keep rottin', vultures take the sky". Yet even when you think the lyrics aren't serious, Steel Mammoth's music will take a turn into emotive, introspective moodiness that can't be funny, and you realize the singer is in fact crooning quite earnestly. Maybe. But there's definitely a method to their madness, one that involves a complex mythology of their own making, about atomic eggs and other cryptic mysteries. The moments of true beauty (like the lovely, sleepy "Waiting For The Goat") don't seem intentionally bathetic at all, even though grins and giggles are never far away. Let's face it, we're happily confused by Steel Mammoth, moreso even than by other NWOFHM efforts from Krypt Axeripper, Motorspandex, and related acts.
While we wish we could take it all completely seriously (or think that it was supposed to be taken completely seriously), knowing the Circle guys we also appreciate their strange humor... Heck it even says ON THE CD TRAY that this is their "disappointing second album". But we must disagree. No disappointment at all. We're lovin' it, from the moment we saw the cover art, through each of many, many spins.
Most aQ customers, when they think of Finland, probably associate it musically with the weird foresty freak folk of groups like Avarus and Kemialliset Ystavat. Or, just as likely, you think of the hypnotic, occasionally metallic space rock of Circle and their various offshoots. But, among geeky metalheads, Finland is probably best known for their underground death metal scene, back in the day. Of course, nearby Sweden is king when it comes to that stuff - there's a whole huge book about it we sell called Swedish Death Metal. But a book could be written about Finnish Death Metal too. Early '90s acts like Amorphis, Demilich, Convulse, and Xysma are up there in the cult death/grind pantheon.
So, when none other than Jussi from Circle told us he was doing an archival cd release on his label Ektro by a Finnish death metal band called Stench Of Decay, we assumed they were a obscure demo band from the '90s... and the cd sure sounds (and looks) like that. Turns out though that Stench Of Decay are much more recent torchbearers for the tradition of Finnish death metal, having formed in 2004 (as fairly young kids, judging from the photo in the cd booklet). The ten tracks collected here come from the band's 2005 debut demo cd-r, a 4-song cassette/12" ep release that came out in 2009, and a 7" single released in 2011. All find SoD ably doing the old school thing, bringing back memories of Entombed, Grave, Bolt Thrower, classic Morbid Angel, etc. One track is a cover of a song from a 1990 demo tape by Finnish death metal pioneers Abhorrence, so Stench Of Decay know their stuff.
And yes, they ARE pretty killer. Press play and you'll be instantly bulldozered by guttural vox, blasting beats, divebombing guitar solos, and churning fuzz - fuzz that somehow seems to consist of serrated sonic saw blades. The tones are THICK, the vibe is SICK, yes what more could you ask for from a death metal album? But, brutal as it is, there's much musical nuance underneath, even melody. SoD have a knack for composing stuff that sounds "classically evil", hummable hellish little ditties you could imagine a being played with less volume and distortion by some sort of sinister chamber quartet...
To reiterate, this is NOT the sort of leather and codpiece clad, Thor-muscled '80s metal that usually inform the antics of Circle's tongue in cheek 'NWOFHM' side projects like Steel Mammoth. No, this is the pure grinding metal of death stuff. It remains to be seen if Jussi's interest in death metal heralds a harsh new direction that Circle and the NWOFHM might take, hmm? And while they sure don't sound like Circle (yet), in their own way, Stench Of Decay are quite brutally hypnotic, with repetitive riffs pulverizing repeatedly...
The second and final record from this legendary Finnish folk icon, who died at age 26 not soon after this record was released. Where his first album, Magneettimiehen Kuolema, was recorded with Finnish prog rockers, Tsavallan Presidentti, this psych folk gem from 1972 is much more stripped down and intimate, dark and mysterious, a combination of shuffly folk and haunting psychedelia, Streng's delicate croon, underpinned by simple percussion, acoustic guitars, pointillist piano, and fluttery flute.
Some of the numbers are fairly upbeat and jubilant, festive for sure, but the magic lies in the darkside, the hushed whispery drifts that found Streng infusing some serious jazzy cosmic drift into his more minimal folkiness. Streng was a huge influence on the modern Finnish troubadours (Es, Kemialliset, Ystavat, Kiila, etc...) and it's easy to hear why on Kesamaa...
On my visit to Finland a few years back, I (Andee) was lucky enough to have Jussi from Circle as a host and guide. Which meant our three priorities were: recording/jamming, eating Finnish pizza (the BEST pizza IN THE WORLD), and of course record shopping (when Jussi was visiting HERE recently, he insisted on record shopping every single day!!). The record shopping was a blast, as it always is in a new city, especially in a new country, but it wasn't all just browsing, there were a bunch of Finnish records I was dying to get my hands on, and would probably never be able to find outside of Finland. But there were also a bunch of bands that I had never heard, but that Jussi insisted I NEEDED to hear, bands that informed his music, and most of the underground Finnish music we were into. One was a band called Mano Mano, a killer classic Finnish rock band, another was Motelli Skronkle, a totally twisted sort-of-pop/folk band (whose records will hopefully be reissued soon on Jussi's Ektro label), and the other was Pekka Streng, in fact Jussi insisted I buy ANYTHING on Love Records, a legendary underground Finnish label, but especially Pekka Streng. We did eventually manage to track it down, and it was just as good as promised, but somehow even weirder and more idiosyncratic, especially for a record that came out in 1970.
Love Records seems to have been reactivated recently, having released those Arctic Hysteria compilations, as well as the super rad Psychedelic Phinland collection, and now, Streng's only two releases, from the early seventies, both released in the years before he died tragically at 26.
Magneettimiehen Kuolema was his debut, and finds him with famous Finnish prog rockers Tasavallan Presidenttii as his back up band. But don't be expecting full on prog, no this is way more folky, tinged with psychedelic rock, and yeah, a little prog. While the sounds on Magneettimiehen Kuolema are not that overly strange, you have to remember this was 1970, and much of the sounds here were WAY ahead of their time. At its core, this is a dreamy folk rock record, a bit of twang, fluttery flutes, acoustic guitar, some spidery psych guitar, a little whistling and of course Streng's soft dreamy vocals. Think Nick Drake or Pugh Rogefeldt or Joakim Skogsberg, but then mix in field recordings, lush piano, dramatic crooning, skittery Indian sounding percussion, buzzy sitar like guitar drones, some wild psychedelia, strange glitchy electronics and analog synths and some seriously strange arrangements, but ultimately, all wrapped around Streng's simple heartfelt folky pop. So good. And it's easy to see how influenced ALL your various Finnish faves were and are by Streng... Es, Circle, Avarus, Kemialliset Ystavat, Anaksimadros, Kiila, Islaja...
Reissued with three bonus tracks, and new liner notes, which are unfortunately (for us at least) all in Finnish.
Jussi from Circle (how many of our reviews start with those 3 words?) is a big big fan of this band, a stripped down minimal blues boogie duo who also hail from Finland, and now have this compilation cd out on Jussi's Ektro label.
One chord, two chords, three chords maybe, they do the most basic blues progressions over-and-over-and-over-again, it's super simple and super repetitive stuff, hypnotically head noddin' for sure, kind of lazy and laidback. They do sound a bit like Circle, if Circle were just guitar and drums and played the blues out on a backporch somewhere, drunk on moonshine, endlessly chooglin' away. A few tracks add a bass player, a few also have singing, but mostly this is all instrumental, just drummin' and strummin', primitive stompin' and geetar honkin', nothin' but. Real simple. Zen blues or something. It's so monomaniacal it almost gets ridiculous; we mean really, while we do like this, at the same time, it might be totally stupid. Or awesome. We can't even tell. But like we said, Jussi from Circle is a big fan. And there's 80 minutes of this stuff here, the disc is packed to the brim, 23 tracks in all, five of 'em previously unreleased, the others taken from 7"s and albums going back to 1995.
When I (Andee) visited Finland a couple years ago, I was picked up at the airport by Circle frontman Jussi and former Circle drummer Peltsi. I was hustled into the car and we sped off. Jussi apparently had a surprise for me. Two hours later, with me jetlagged and barely awake, we pulled up to the local community center, where Circle and most of the bands in their town practice, and where they just happen to have a theatre. My surprise was the opening night performance of Circle / Kuusumun Profeetta vocalist Mika Ratto's new play Le Grande Anaale (The Giant Ass), the tale of a man who builds a giant ass, through which all sorts of demons escape into the city. The townsfolk are so mad, that they build a giant cock, place the builder of the ass in the cock and stuff the cock in the giant ass, keeping the demons safely in the ass. Phew. Wow. Hard to say how good it was, as I had just spent 10 hours on a plane, and then 2 hours in a car. But boy was it weird. A HUGE paper mache ass, with cheeks that slid apart like a sliding glass door, all red and evil and lit up from inside, and then a giant paper mache phallus made from what appeared to be a wheelbarrel! And basically everyone I knew in Finland was in the play in fake beards and powdered wigs, wearing wings or false noses, fake moustaches and bizarre costumes. Those who weren't in the play, supplied the music, which was quite cool. Dark and percussive, dramatic and spooky, occasionally goofy and jaunty. So now, a couple years later, we ALL can at least experience the sounds of Le Grande Anaale if not the sights. Omnious and macabre one moment, cacophonous and crazed the next...overall very atmospheric and striking. A good "what the heck are you listening to?" album that unexpecting listeners (your partner, housemates) might end up liking. Imagine a sinister Carl Stalling making music for a cult religious ceremony, or Goblin meets J.A. Caesar in a madhouse. Haunting strings drone, wind howls, bells chime, excited actors declaim in incantory voices. Probably a good thing that it's all in Finnish, too! English speakers will never guess its all about a giant ass. Key players here include not only the Circle singer Mika Ratto, but also two members of Magyar Posse. Presented in the usual lovely Fonal non-jewel case cd packaging.
This release includes the debut album "Magenta Skycode" remastered and repackaged, with a bonus CD called "Magenta Lost" of studio outtakes, demos and other rare and previously unreleased material recorded in 1994/1996.
This new band on Fonal with all the double-u's in their name is of course Finnish, and in fact is something of a super-duo: Fonal boss Sami Sanpakkila (Es) and recent Wire magazine cover star Jan Anderzen (Tomutonttu, Kemialliset Ystavat) are the two collaborators here (at last!). The name they've chosen is apparently a play on the humorous Finnish phrase "tuusan nuuskana", which means something like "total shambles" in English. Ok, well, but while the abstract, intermittent, fractured soundz & rhythms heard here could lend themselves to that description, Sami & Jan are actually exercising a fair amount of control, and the tracks here, while not your usual sort of "songs" are most definitely music, not noise. Instrumental, full of sweet sweet drones and distortion, shining shimmer... we think most fans of both Es and Tomutonttu and other Finnish/Fonal acts on the more abstract edges of soundmaking will appreciate this quite a bit!!
The five long tracks find this project getting out of the usual "Finnish forest folk" thing we associate with Kemialliset and instead seem much more sci-fi and electronic, synth zips and zaps transmitted from a mad scientist's laboratory. Some of the sounds remind us of sferics, that spooky VLF radio noise phenomenon of the Earth's magnetosphere we used to sell whole cds of (Stephen P. McGreevy's Electric Engima and Auroral Chorus II, wish they were still in print). Somehow those sorts of sounds - however produced - are woven into a detailed, textured sound world that's at once both pleasant (really) and intriguing. Finnish forest science lab fans won't be surprised.
And, the usual obi-strip with which Fonal packages their cds is cleverly been utilized here to enhance the cover art with a simple form of animation. Designed by Shogun Kunitoki's Jari Suominen, it's a clear acetate strip printed with narrow stripes, that interacts with the cover art to create a pretty cool optical illusion of motion (a flickering, spinning pinwheel) when you slide the obi across the cover. Neat! (We haven't opened the lp, but assume it must also contain a similar insert.)
Welcome to the happy-go-lucky side of Fonal records!! A shiny pop-rock gem of a band from Turku, Finland, TV-Resistori play electronic toy pop with wide-eyed wit and unadulterated exuberance. Could be likened to a younger and rougher Stereolab, a Finnish Stereo Total, or a happier Cyann & Ben. Also for fans of '90s Shibuya-Kei bands, snowsuited indie pop, and wonderfully silly synths. Intiaanidisko is warm and scratchy as a brand new scarf. Charmingly dorky. Enthusiastically recommended.
The shiny happy side of Finland's Fonal roster. If we didn't know better we would probably believe it if someone said that they were from Japan or France because they kick out that totally bubbly, playful and addictive flavor of pop that totally brings to mind the best moments of Cibo Matto, Pizzicato Five, Stereo Total (yeah we know they are from Germany but you get what we're saying), Buffalo Daughter, etc. This time out we also hear some nice fuzzy USA influence with some Beach Boys moments and an overall feel that reminds us a lot of Mates Of State. What's so great about TV-Resistori is how they keep their sound so warm, punchy and catchy without resorting to all out quirkiness or kitsch. Too many bands trying to pull of this style suffer at the hand of over the top and glossy production that in the end kind of erases all the charm that might be within the songs. TV-Resistori do it right and keep their sound rich and dense with an analog warmth and a tender touch on the control boards which so nicely compliments their songs, and makes for one of the better pop albums of the year.
Here's some uneasy listening courtesy of Finland's Umpio. We had discovered the work of Umpio by way of a collaboration with the long-time aQ-favorite irr. app. (ext.), upon which Mr. Umpio (nee Pentti Dassum) reconstituted a bunch of irr. app. (ext.) material into an album that sounded remarkably like irr. app. (ext.) - profoundly strange collages of mudsucking torpor and psychically unstable gloominess. Muelas is none of that, standing in fully erect glory as a throttling, self-perpetuating explosion of noise-junk, signal-overload, and gleeful sonic destruction. The album's artwork connects the dots of the noise to the phobias and fears of going to the dentist, only to discover the man behind the dental drill is quite the sadist. There's a faux-outsider-artist drawing of phallic creatures with equally phallic dental drills who are converging on the poor patient suffering from some unfortunate tooth malady. There's the standard dental X-ray; and then there's a strange photograph of what actually looks like a dismembered jaw floating in the bottom of a jar, complete with fleshy tissue and decayed molars. Gross. Suitably, the noise that Umpio generates is sharp, crackling, and brutal, with plenty of cut-up configurations that sit somewhere between the pre-digital work of Merzbow and the scatological aktions of Runzelstirn & Gurglestock. Somebody on the internet postulated that the track "Night Goat" might be an uncredited Melvins cover. Why not?
This killer two band tag team of weirdo whatthefuck outsider Finnish black metal, previously only available on (out of print) vinyl, NOW ON CD!! Here's what we had to say about this split when we first reviewed the 12":
The return of our favorite Finnish black metal weirdos Ride For Revenge, who really are barely even black metal, and actually hardly metal, but they are definitely weird, and this latest epic jam definitely does nothing to convince us otherwise. Beginning the ridiculous (and best ever!) title: "Ridiculed By Ladies Of The Moon", the song begins with a long stretch of warbly synth drone, laced with feedback, slowly undulating, while in the background sounds clank and clatter, sounding either like someone building a robot or someone making dinner, this goes on for a while until BLAM, the drums kick in, the synthy/electronic buzz is joined by HEAVY buzzy bass, and the track is transformed into a stumbling bass heavy dirge, the drums super distorted, which is especially noticeable on the bizarre fills, then the vocals, and awesome alien croak, sick and sinister and totally fucking nuts, the song pounds away, the sound gradually becoming a sort of dirgey space goth doom, dramatic and demented, and then there's the last stretch a wild final few minutes, the drums gone haywire, totally chaotic, the buzz intensified, wreathed in squiggles of white noise, and the sonorous clang of metal on metal, either some distant bells, or more likely, the pots and pans from the above mentioned kitchen being hurled about, a twisted and baffling finish to another incredible warped chunk of sonic weirdness from these guys.
Which is a lot to live up to for Undor, who decide to not try to outweird RfR, but instead, offer up a sort of sonic analogue, a stretched out midtempo jam, that sounds like just drums and guitar, the guitar riffing away, but occasionally spiraling into some weird bit of atonal squiggle, or slippery abstract melody, or a brief bit of shred, but always returning to the stumbling, lumbering, lurching main rhythm/riff. The vibe is a bit mournful, at times it sounds a bit like Hypothermia crossed with Varghkoghargasmal, the vocals pushing it over the top, a wild hysterical shriek, that in some weird way balances the slightly more measured tone of the rest of the track. But only slightly.
It seems like in every Uton review, we inevitably mention both that they are mysterious, and that we don't get nearly enough music from them. And once again, it's been a while since we've heard from these mysterious Finnish forest freaks, who definitely rank way up their in our Finnish music pantheon, and the fact that their record seem to be rare occasions only makes us treasure them more.
This latest was in fact recorded two years ago, on a 4 track using only headphones as speakers ("no other speakers were used during recordings and mixing of this record", the liner notes proudly explain). It's also suggested that we "listen near midnight in a dark room (or with minimal light)" which is always good advice when it comes to Uton, whose music is haunting and ritualistic, and most definitely evokes some sort of nocturnal gathering, especially here, where processed voices chant over fluttering flutes and minimal percussion. Swirling squelchy effects drift in fields of deep sonorous rumbles and whirs, manufactured field recordings surround layers of malfunctioning synths, and dreamy melodic cacophonies, and lush swirling swaths of deep low end, this new record darkly restrained, meditative and hypnotic, heavy on the vocal driven drones and subterranean shimmer, with some almost throat singing woven into the woozy whirling thrum, everything driven by murky pulses and buried rhythms, might be the darkest, dreamiest Uton yet, and as always, WAY recommended. LIMITED TO 275 COPIES!!
Of all the freaky Finnish forest folk we hold so near and dear, Uton continue to be the most mysterious, musically for sure, but also, just in general, with far fewer releases than many of their countrymen, most of those releases containing little or no information, featuring bizarre abstract artwork, strange song titles, or no song titles at all, and a gorgeously twisted outsider music to match.
On this latest, bizarrely titled, lp only release, the first strange thing we noticed was the grooves on the record when we slid it from the sleeve, both sides had a whole bunch of super short tracks, almost like how a record of locked grooves appears, and indeed, Straight Edge XXS is a series of about 30 short tracks, but listening straight through it doesn't necessarily sound that way.
Fans of Uton need not fear, and Finnish music freeks will still feel right at home in Uton's warped and warbly avant folk free noise sound world. Little bits of abstract percussion, scrapes and rattles and bits of crunch and buzz, fluttery flute, strange warped loops, hand drums and chimes, chanted vocals, mysterious invocations, the sound slipping from muddy and murky to glimmering and sun dappled, extended stretches of woozy almost krautrock, fragmented bits of psych folk, haunting ritualistic invocations, layers of buzz and hiss, freaky falsetto crooning, fractured arrangements, all of these super short sonic mini landscapes, deftly woven into a super freaky, surprisingly cohesive, yet still distinctly and deliriously damaged whole.
Amazing, super intricate collage cover, and of course LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES!!!!
Okay Finnish forest freeks, we only got a few of these, and it's CRAZY limited anyway, only 55 copies made, so we'll make this brief, even though it's pretty dang rad.
We're used to all kindsa craziness from Uton, from dark drones to wild fractured folk, from dirgey noise rock to pretty shimmery ambience, but the title should be your first clue that this is none of those.
This is indeed some serious violin massage, in fact you might as well change violin to vioLENT as this is some serious wild and wooly scrape and skree. According to the label, "Nothing is used besides a violin, de-tuned, abused", which is pretty much what this sounds like, but whereas that makes it sound almost unlistenable, the truth is that the sound here is pretty hypnotic, weirdly atonal and brittle, indeed a bit harsh, but not really that far removed from the classic minimal violin freakouts of Henry Flynt, albeit a tad more fractured and primitive. But heck if you like those Flynt discs, with their relentlessly sawed violin and screech detuned and deconstructed avant bluegrass, then you might be just the candidate for an Uton Violin Massage!
Nice printed sleeves, every one hand drawn and painted, every one different and each one hand numbered, LIMITED TO 55 COPIES!!!!
