HYÖNTEISIÄ VOI RAKASTAA

I believe a certain type of humor is needed for appreciating this music, and as humorless gray traitor "We weren't amused" by this album. Possibly the truth is my sense of humor differs, and this hopingly honest construction just misses my appreciation. In order to try build up my problems with it, I skimmed the tracks trough, and hopefully do not offend anybody with my hostile remarks (haha).

Like Nightwish uses classical operatic female voice within a rock context, this band does the same with male vocals. There are some quite difficult rhythmic movements in the song, so the players are quite skillful, but I dislike their style highly. The opener "Örn" is right from the start nearly impossible for me to listen through due the annoying humor solutions. Also the lyrics are very artsy and lack any kind of meaning for me (maybe that's the aim, hey how clever). Also the few emotional and skillful moments are lost among the infantile joke parts. "Raskaana" starts as slow & bluesy rock, and it has extremely irritating fooling around middle part (powerful "we are CRAZY" signals). "Hämärän joutomaa" is then clear King Crimson tribute song; It starts with their 1980's "Discipline" quoting, this particular part sounding quite good. The following moments adds some elements resembling their 1970's "Fracture" atmospherics. Also the singing is done here without unnecessary jokes, making this as the best track of the album for me. The faster end part returns to the "Discipline"-styled straits. "Pannuhuoneesta" is another song that makes me want to vomit, being some kind of faster lo-fi replication of the Knight Rider TV-series theme with sampled voice listing some chemical and technical elements. "Luottamus" is acoustic softer tune with elements from easy listening jazz, folk rock and Curved Air resembling violins. In the middle part there's a quite good acoustic tender movement to be spotted (yeah!). "Kaivoonkatsoja" is a jumpy and aggressive instrumental composition with some smoother movements making it more "progressive". "Kosto" starts quietly and moves later to more oppressive and chaotic feelings, being very boring and irritating rant. "Hätä" has again interesting rhythms, but I don't like the style of the arrangements here, the composition swifts from one theme to another without creating anything interesting in my opinion. Somehow this track resembles some movements of Änglagård's "Hybris" with its pretentious chaos. "Myrskynmusiikkia" is another aggressive track as the name suggests, still having some calmer parts for contrast, continuing the stylistic line of this album; Being irritating. The last track "Hyönteiset" is fast and repulsive sonic entity, and only thing good in here is the fact that it's the last track on the album.

I borrowed this album from the library, as I noted this band and Alamaailman Vasarat were going to perform with Anekdoten at the Tavastia Club, Helsinki. As I'm a huge fan of melancholic Anekdoten, and these bands have some sort of friendship relation, I was kind of interested. What was an insult of highest degree for me was the fact, that Anekdoten was the first "warm up" band to perform, and these idiots were "The Main Feature" of the night. Anekdoten even had to skip their last song, as " there was no time" due the schedule of the Finnish prog masters about entering the stage. I watched Alamaailman Vasarat with repulse, an as Höyry-Kone started to play, I had to leave the building, go home, and new get back.