VASARAASIA

On their debut album, Alamaailman Vasarat doesn't waste any time letting you know they play a completely different breed of music. Alamaailman Vasarat play very fast and chaotic acoustic gypsy folk with a bit of metal with saxophones, trombones, organs, pianos and two cellos that are often electrified to sound like a distorted guitar. It's really quite unique music. The music possesses very playful and lighthearted energy that is actually quite fun to listen to. The band plays passionately and frantically throughout the entire album.

The album is all instrumental, which (like many other great instrumental albums) is a good move because there's simply so many musical ideas going on, singing would only get in the way. Most of the songs are shorter, around the 3 minute mark but a few are considerably longer. These songs are mostly characterized as energetic bursts of energy, which, thankfully, are kept short because if they were any longer they would most definitely be extending their welcome. The longer songs are usually slow, more drawn out with a dirge- like feel to them. The band predominately sticks to these two extremes with little variation.

That's really my main issue with the album, though. While there's nothing bad, only like half of it is really good. It suffers from a lack of direction and, especially in the second half of the album, it sounds like the are just repeating ideas from earlier with little variety. That's actually kind of a shame considering how interesting the music is. But those concerns aside, Alamaailman Vasarat should be considered nothing less than fresh, which provides for a fun listen.

Standout songs: "Mamelukki & Musta Leski", "Häntä hellii käärme"