FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: NORTHER, WINTERSUN, AND MOONSORROW

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Dec 132010
 

There’s no unifying theme to today’s installment in our Finland Tribute Week series — just a line-up of bands that need to be mentioned if we’re to do even half-assed justice to Finnish metal, all three of which are expected to release new albums in 2011. So, without further introductory verbiage, here we go:

NORTHER

Norther, a band often compared (rightly or wrongly) to Children of Bodom, originally started in 1996 as a death-metal band under the name Requiem, then changed their name to Decayed, and then in 2000, after significant line-up changes, to Norther.

From 1996 to 2009, the band was fronted by Petri Lindroos — who has also been the vocalist/guitarist for Ensiferum since 2004. In 2009, he was replaced as Norther’s vocalist by Aleksi Sihvonen — who is also the vocalist for Medicated and former vocalist for the now-defunct Imperanon (whose guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari is now a member of Wintersun). The band also includes bass-player Jukka Koskinen, who is also a member of Wintersun (as is Jari Mäenpää, who used to be a vocalist/guitarist with Ensiferum) and also now plays for Amberian Dawn, as does Norther’s drummer Heikki Saari.

Are you following this? Are we clear? Apparently, the Finns play musical chairs, too.

Norther has produced five albums to date, the last of which was a 2008 release called N. The band has recorded a new album, to be called Circle Regenerated, for an early 2011 release on Century Media Records.  They’ve released a digital single from that album, which features Sihvonen’s vocals and the guitar playing of Daniel Freyberg (Naildown, Source of Demise), who joined the band this year. The single is called “Break Myself Away”, and after the jump we’ll show you how to download it for free, plus we’ll have some older Norther music for you, too. Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: MISCELLANY

 MISCELLANY, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
Dec 122010
 

If you’ve been keeping count, we’ve done Finland Tribute Week posts for 10 days in a row (including today) — and that’s not counting the two posts about Amorphis and Before the Dawn that started this tribute rolling before we decided to formalize it with a name. Either way, whether it’s been 10 days or 12, we’ve moved beyond the normal dictionary definition of “week”, at least if you live on Earth. There’s just too much awesome Finnish metal that we feel compelled to write about — and we’re still not done.

We’re not quite sure how much longer we’ll roll with this. We’re not even sure what day it is. But based on what we’ve got up our sleeves at the moment, it will last about three more days (interspersed with a couple of guest contributions). Even then, we’re positive we’ll have left out bands that are near and dear to the hearts of many of you.

Yes, Finland’s a small country, but it’s still a fucking country, and there’s just no way we can do complete justice to all the metal it’s producing, even if we continued this series into the New Year. Plus, lots of things have been happening in the wider world of metal while we’ve been tunnel-visioned with Finland, and we need to get back to that wider world.

But not today. Today, we’re going to play our MISCELLANY game with Finnish metal. As regular readers know, in our usual MISCELLANY posts, I randomly pick bands I’ve never heard before, I listen to a song (or two) of their music, and I make a log of the journey for this site — usually not knowing in advance what the music will sound like or whether it will be appealing or disappointing.

For this Finnish edition of MISCELLANY, I’ve randomly picked five — yes, five — bands from the list of reader suggestions we’ve gotten since this Tribute began. These are bands whose music I’d never heard before. In fact, these are bands whose names I’d never heard before: Ikuinen Kaamos, Hateform, Flame, Crystalic, and Cause For Effect.

And, sure enough, the music tends to validate our hypothesis that there’s some mutating substance in the Finnish water supply that turns a high percentage of Finnish children into hot-shit musicians, because this was one wild ride, from start to finn-ish. (for reactions to the music, and the tracks I heard, read on after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: ENSIFERUM AND TURISAS

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  24 Responses »
Dec 112010
 

There will be running and galloping, the drawing of swords, a rain of arrows. There will be battle axes and torches at night, the cleaving of bone, the wailing of women. There will be longboats on the rivers, blood will be spilled, heroes will be made. There will be kilts and animal skins and war paint. There will be victory songs and anthems to the ancestors. And they will all fucking rock.

Yesterday our installment in this series highlighted two bands that had varying degrees of folk-metal influence in their sound. Today, we’re wading deeper into Finnish folk-metal waters — but not just any kind of folk metal. It’s folk metal with lots of fucking swords.

ENSIFERUM

Ensiferum is the Latin word for “sword-bearer”. The band was founded in 1995, and since their formation, Ensiferum have released four full-length albums, one EP, one compilation, three singles, and three demo albums. We’re not familiar with the full discography, but we know and like the last two albums — Victory Songs (2007) and From Afar (2009). We also got the chance to see them play in Seattle, and they’re even better live than on disc — they know how to whip a crowd into a frenzied, frothing mass of motion.

Ensiferum take the speedy, flashy mix of keyboard- and guitar-driven Finnish melodeath popularized by Children of Bodom and color it with folkish melodies and lyrical themes that speak of legends and myths and heroes with swords. They feature a mix of harsh and clean vocals, epic Viking chants, and fast-as-shit riffing and rhythms.  (more after the jump, including a shitload of music and some exciting tour news . . .) Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: HUMPPA ‘TIL IT HURTS (FINNTROLL AND KORPIKLAANI)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  18 Responses »
Dec 102010
 

Let’s pause for a moment and take stock of what we’ve done with this tribute series so far:  We’ve covered a pretty wide range of melodic death-metal bands, both globally known names and newcomers. We’ve featured some purveyors of funeral doom. We’ve written about some of the biggest names in Finnish black metal. What are we still missing?

HUMPPA METAL! Yes, in response to overwhelming popular demand, today we’re shining the spotlight on two bands who have incorporated traditional Finnish humppa into their metal in quite different ways. You could also think of this post as a dip into the waters of Finnish folk-metal, though in our opinion that isn’t really a fair characterization of one of these bands.

What, you may ask is humppa? Let’s see what The Font Of All Human Knowledge has to say on the subject:

Humppa is a type of music from Finland. It is related to jazz and very fast foxtrot, played two beats to a bar (2/4 or 2/2). Typical speed is about 220 to 260 beats per minute. Humppa is also the name of a few social dances danced to humppa music. All dances involve bounce that follows the strong bass of the music. . . . The name humppa was invented by Antero Alpola for a radio show in the 1950s. He picked it up from German Oktoberfest where the locals used the word to describe the playing of the band. The band probably used a tuba, as the sound of tuba on the first beat is like hump, the second beat coming as a pa. (The related German style is known as oompah.)

As far as we can tell from afar, humppa isn’t the sort of music that many people in Finland buy for their listening pleasure. Instead, it’s music that people dance to, and it’s played in dance halls in cities large and small. As we’ll see, it has also been incorporated into metal by two bands whose fame has spread well beyond their home country — Finntroll and Korpiklaani.  (more after the jump, including tracks to hear . . .) Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: HORNA, BEHERIT, IMPALED NAZARENE, SARGEIST — AND BEHEXEN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  19 Responses »
Dec 092010
 

What, did you think we would forget about black metal? No way. How could we put together a tribute to extreme metal from Finland and not (fearfully) bow our horned heads in obeisance to the music of the beast? We just needed a little time to summon up the courage before wading out into that smoking, seething, sulfurous pool that is Finnish black metal.

As regular readers know, we wouldn’t call ourselves black-metal experts. As fans of the genre, we’re relative latecomers, and we’re still discovering bands — not only new ones but also historical icons. But from what we’ve learned in our ongoing education, Finland has definitely made its mark. You know the mark we’re talking about (it begins with a 6 and ends in a 6 and, uh, it has a 6 in the middle).

Today, we’re featuring three long-running bands who seem to be among the best known within kvlt circles (Horna, Beherit, and Impaled Nazarene :)) — even we had heard of them before and even knew some of their music — plus another (Sargeist) who may not be quite so well-known but are very capable of impaling your head on a musical spike. And in a last-minute update, we’ve just got to say something about Behexen.

Once again, we’re indebted to our commenters for their suggestions, and particularly to Johan Huldtgren (Obitus) for bringing Sargeist (and Behexen) to our attention. We know Johan is really waiting for the humppa music, but he’s gonna have to wait a bit longer. Patience, bro. For now, dear unclean readers, inscribe a pentagram on your forehead with fetus blood and listen to what we’ve dug out of the maggot-ridden crypt — it’s quite a varied spectrum of what Finnish black metal has to offer, and the music is awesome.   (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: INSOMNIUM

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Dec 082010
 

Insomnium, like Children of Bodom, is another one of those bands that just can’t be omitted in a feature on Finnish metal — at least not any feature we’re in charge of writing. They draw together strands of melodic death metal, progressive metal, and doom, and weave them into music that’s heavy, epic, beautiful, and sometimes haunting. When people talk about a distinctively Finnish brand of melodic metal, this band, along with Amorphis, are likely the first two bands they’re thinking of.

Insomnium have given us four studio albums to date, with another one due for release next year — their first after signing in August with Century Media (home of other Finnish ass-kickers like Finntroll and Turisas).

We liked Insomnium’s last album, 2009’s Across the Dark, but our favorite remains Above the Weeping World.  That album was our introduction to Insomnium, and it’s still the Insomnium music we go back to, over and again. It’s weighted more heavily on the melodeath side of the scales than Across the Dark, with more un-clean singing, and that may explain our personal preference for it.

After the jump, we’ve got  Insomnium music and videos for your entertainment — including a special single that the band released in September, featuring guest vocals by Dark Tranquillity‘s Mikael Stanne. Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: BILL SKINS FIFTH AND MEDICATED

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Dec 072010
 

Thanks again to all the commenters who’ve sent us band suggestions for our ongoing tribute to Finnish metal — and by all means, keep those suggestions coming. We’re still calling this thing a “Tribute Week”, but we’re being really flexible in how we define “week”.

For today’s installment, we decided to focus on relative newcomers. We picked one band off the suggestion list in fairly random fashion — Medicated. And for our lead item, we’re focusing on a band with the attention-grabbing name of Bill Skins Fifth, who contacted us about their first EP in September. We listened to the EP’s opening song back then and got immediately addicted. But we still put the EP aside because of something else we were in the middle of, and our attention wandered, as it often does.

We’ve kept that EP on our list of music to check out more thoroughly, and now maybe it’s just as well we didn’t write about it earlier, because it’s a natural fit in this Tribute Week series.

If you like music that sticks in your brain and rattles the fuck out of it at the same time, we think you’re going to dig both of these outfits. So stay with us after the post to learn more and hear some tracks.

Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: CHILDREN OF BODOM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Dec 062010
 

In this ongoing Finland metal tribute, we’ve been trying to focus on bands that are new to us, because we’re selfish like that. But really, how could we run a series on Finnish metal and not talk, at least briefly, about what is arguably the country’s most visible extreme metal export — Children of Bodom?

The three of us who started NCS have been diehard COB fans for many years. Whenever we get wind that they’re coming anywhere near Seattle on tour, we react like Pavlov’s dog at the dinner bell. For us, it’s hard to get enough of that speedy, hooky, identifiably COB brand of thrashy, flashy melodeath or Alexi Laiho’s shredtastic solos, and in just about every way you want, they put on a kickass live show.

These dudes have come a long way from their underground days. They’ve perfected a signature sound — you hear the first few bars of a COB song, and you know it’s them — and it’s a sound that causes shitloads of people all over the world to salivate.

Next year will bring more worldwide salivating, with the scheduled March 8 release of the band’s seventh studio album, Relentless Reckless Forever. The recording is done, and the band has even finished a music video for the first single, “Was It Worth It?”, which was filmed in Pennsylvania (?!?) and will feature two-time X Games gold medalist and two-time Thrasher Magazine “Skater of the Year” Chris Cole as well as pro skaters Jamie Thomas and Tom Asta. So it’s gonna be some kind of skate-thrash party song apparently.

With significant fan popularity and commercial success have come some questions: Has COB become so reliant on that signature sound that they’re starting to become formulaic in their song construction? Is their musical growth slowing? Are they losing that underground edge they used to have? Was 2008’s Blooddrunk album something of a let-down, despite the fact that it was the band’s biggest seller of all time?  (more after the jump . . ., including a bunch of COB music) Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: TYRANNY, COLOSSEUM, AND SKEPTICISM

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Dec 052010
 

In today’s installment of our make-it-up-as-we-go tribute to Finnish metal, I’m doing something I probably shouldn’t do. I’m writing about a genre of metal about which I’m almost completely ignorant.

Wait a minute. Why did I just say I shouldn’t do that?  If I were to limit myself to subjects I know something about, this site would have folded long ago. Either that or I would have been forced to change the focus to NO CLEAN UNDERWEAR. I wonder what groverXIII would have come up with as a banner for that?

Anyway, since I’ve never let abject ignorance stand in the way of expressing my opinions, I’m forging ahead. And you can’t stop me! Today, the focus is on funeral doom, Finnish style. Since I know next to nothing about this genre, I’m being guided 100% by the suggestions we received when I solicited ideas for this ongoing tribute.

And speaking of ongoing, in an e-mail Andy Synn helpfully pointed us to the following passage in the quite hysterical Uncyclopedia:  “Earth’s orbit around the sun also contributes to it’s aging process. Each new orbit is considered one local year, which in universal terms of time is simply a standard galactic week. As you can imagine, the Earthlings don’t get much done within this massive waste of time.” And yes, this does put Finland Tribute Week in an whole new perspective.

The suggestions on which I relied came from what appear to be some very reliable sources. Misha Nuis, the vocalist/guitarist for Akelei (a Dutch band whose very impressive 2010 debut album we reviewed here) and self-professed doomster, pointed us in the direction of Tyranny, with these words: “This is crushing funeral doom at its best. If you put this album on and sit down while it plays, you’ll find it hard to get up again after it’s finished. That’s how heavy it is.”

Our second source, CarlSk, named two more Finnish funeral doom bands, one of which was Colosseum. And finally, Canopy‘s Fredrik Hultgren brought Skepticism to our attention, calling them “nothing short of amazing” and “mesmerizing” on stage. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

FINLAND TRIBUTE WEEK: DEMILICH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 042010
 

Fuck, but I do love the comments on this site. For a good long while after we started NCS, we didn’t get any, but eventually they grew like magic mushrooms. A big part of the magic, at least for me, is the introductions we’ve gotten to bands we didn’t know about. That’s one of the objectives we had when we started NCS — one we’ve tried to follow through on consistently: Introduce people to new music, usually from bands that aren’t household names, at least here in the U.S. And in the process of trying to do that, we’ve learned about lots of new bands ourselves.

Case in point: this Finland Tribute Week thing we spontaneously started a few days ago. (We could have done this with other countries — and we will — but Finland just kinda emerged as the focal point of its own accord.) We invited suggestions for Finnish metal, and man, did we get them. They’re still coming in — and by all means, don’t stop! (The best place to continue adding suggestions is on this post — it’s a good collection point not only for me but also for readers who are as interested as I am in exploring new sounds.) We’ll still work into the daily posts some of our regular features, and maybe a new album review here and there, but I really don’t see any reason to put an artificial stop to the Finland tribute. The music is so richly varied and so good that it just makes sense to continue rolling with it.

Plus, it’s proving to be such a good antidote to Christmas season fuckery that rolling it right through the holiday is just what a good (witch)doctor would prescribe. Plus, who says we have to define a week by reference to the daily rotation of the Earth on its axis? We’ve discovered that it takes Mercury about 58 Earth-days to rotate once around its axis, which would make a week on Mercury the equivalent of 406 Earth-days. 406 days in a row of Finnish metal might be pushing the envelope past the rupture point, but it sure gives us a lot of leeway while continuing to call this series Finland Tribute Week. We like leeway.

So far, we’ve had three days in a row of Exceptions to the Rule. Don’t get me wrong — the music has been strong despite the presence, in varying degrees, of clean vocals and sweeping melodies. But to be brutally honest, I’ve had this gnawing hunger for something that’s harsh and nasty, like the feeling I get when I’m stuck in a place where I can’t smoke for hours on end. So today, we’re veering back in the more typical NCS direction with Demilich.  (And given how many intriguing recommendations we’ve received, we’ll probably start to double-up on these posts in the coming days, or this thing really will go on for 406 days.)  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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