Peace, love and death metal

This is my most favourite day of the year. There no darkness in our small hours these weeks. In recent years I’ve learned to love the light and appreciate night more as an emotional experience. There’s enough darkness in our years, so let’s celebrate the summer we have here.

Chang Ffos - “Iron Icon” mp3
Chang Ffos - “The Throne Of Sasquatch Ascending” mp3

Ever heard of Chang Ffos? Me neither, but their sludge have enough buzz - or the other way around - that it’s easy to appreciate them.

Death By Kite -”Himmelfahrtskommando” mp3
Death By Kite - “Bhf. Asta” mp3

Danish Death By Kite have a stupid name, but their debut album is of high quality. Trio’s mission was to combine different elements from band members’ musical backgrounds, but in my opinion this is rather something new because it sounds so natural. Shoegaze indie with danceable beats - this album is 50/50 about killing yourself in misery and then dancing the misery away.

Crystallic - “Severe Punishment” mp3

A long-lost Polish techical death metal album from the mid-90’s? No - Watch Us Deteriorate is a debut album of Finnish techdeth act Crystallic. If you’ve ever thought Symbolic might be the best album ever, there’s a slight chance you can listen through “Severe Punishment”.

And This Army - “Blackbeard” mp3

Rarely, music I listen to paints an image of a city, its streets or other, should I say, man-made structures. Mostly my music is all about backing up what comes inside of me, soundtracks to emotions and current feelings. Of course there are exceptions, like Swedish Broder Daniel’s Cruel Town, that spoke so clearly about a place and about leaving it for survival. It still was an album that gave notes to every cruel town there is and especially to those located give or take 1 000 kilometres from folkhemmet of nordic safety. (On this matter, if you have an old issue of Vice, The Laisvall Issue to be precise, stored somewhere, please read it.)

While listening to New York’s And This Army they kind of invite me to their home. Their self-released debut Foe is by all means an album full of organic and emotional music that depending on your mood, makes you either transcend or descend into other levels. However, And This Army’s keep their feet well on the ground: Foe trusts on the holy trinity of recognizable vocals, innovative guitar work and strong beats. It makes it all sound like it have never been made before, even if you can pinpoint references from Neurosis to Sonic Youth and Gang Of Four to Black Sabbath.

It’s not that And This Army comes flawless. At times their music feels as if it’s being dragged or forced through the route. Also, I would’ve changed the track order. Still, at least by the time Foe reaches “Blackbeard” and “Stranglehold” it becomes evident that this band truly masters their vision of music. Their representation of urban insecurity does have an breath of fresh air which makes Foe so well worth remembering.

Listen to Foe

Finnish official top 40 album chart is slightly schizophrenic. It’s credibility was damaged earlier this year when rap artist Asa’s unofficial mixtape Foetida entered the chart at #4. Beside netsales and hand to hand sales, this unofficial release was sold only at one record store. Not bad for a #4 record.

Last week history was made by none other than Metallica. All 10 Metallica albums from Kill ‘Em All to St. Anger were given a chart position (link), four of them at top 10. Reason for Metallica’s sudden success can be traced to the fact that all albums are now finally being sold at midprice (~ 9 euros, I think) and also, Metallica will play a stadion show in Helsinki in July

Weird enough, on this week’s album chart (link), there are no traces of any Metallica albums! From hero to zero in a week must be written in history books, that’s for sure.

Turbonegro - Retox album stream

A new Entombed track at Candlelight USA’s myspace

Logh will play two shows in Finland in September. I’m especially happy to see them come to my hometown Jyväskylä and my homeclub Lutakko, on September 14. Just a few weeks ago I received a package from Trust No One, including last issue of Logh’s four-part 7″ series built around their The Raging Sun album. It’s lovely that the set is now full, four years after the first part was released.

Danko Jones - “Play The Blues” mp3
Danko Jones - “Lovercall” mp3
Danko Jones - “Caramel City” mp3

It’s 65 celsius degrees warmer outside than it was exactly 4 months ago. This weather suits Danko Jones‘ masculine rock ‘n’ roll much better.

It’ve been years since the last time I listened to Born A Lion and goddamit it still hits hard: “If the good Lord wants to strike me down tonight and I haven’t found my true love I haven’t found my true love I’M GONNA DIE A HAPPY MAN!”

Danko Jones’ later efforts may not be of the same quality as it were 5 years ago, but that doesn’t hold me back a bit. This record may have been unleashed out of its cage for the second time - and if it cause me to drive a fatal car accident, I’m gonna die a happy man.

Hebosagil - “Temple” mp3

When I write, I love to start describing a band by saying something like: “Imagine being hit by a train”. I use figure of speech to describe the weight and velocity of music, so that you, a reader, would believe me that the band I’m talking about really is heavy metal music.

In Hebosagil’s case, it’d be an underestimation to say “Imagine being hit by a train”. There is a short cut, no imagination required: just listen to their music and you are being hit by a heavy object, in this case a heavy sonic object.

Hebosagil is relatively young and unknown Finnish band. Some thrashy demos under their bullet belt they’ve refocused to much more original and way more heavier sound. They use reference points such as High On Fire, Autopsy and Skitsystem. Sludge, filth and destruction indeed are the keywords here.

Cosmic EP is 25-minute multiheaded monster. The core is in the slower, but oh so heavy (believe me?) songs, such as the opener “Temple”, but for the sake of not stagnating at times Hebosagil’s music burst into blastbeats, noisebreaks and stoned guitar leads. Everything is kept well together - and even if this quite far from what you’d call lovely, this EP has a charm you can’t help but love. Drums sounds like a violent thunder and that’s always a compliment.

For the lovers of heavy and filthy music, Hebosagil’s Cosmic EP is available for free download at their homesite. Highly recommended, this is one of the best Finnish self-financied (and other) work I’ve heard for months, if not years.