PISARA JA LAMMAS 1

- The First Review of This Album -

This long-living Finnish band is for me among the most difficult ones to write about to an international prog community. Why? 1) They haven't gained much attention abroad, as far as I know, and understandably so for having Finnish lyrics in a central role. 2) They have a stable cult status here and they have been described as Finland's most even-quality band; each new album gets favourable reviews by critics who can mostly just circulate the same old phrases as the style stays pretty much the same album after album. And 3), I'm a relatively new listener of Abso. But this time there's at least something new to say.

This album and Pisara ja Lammas 2 (2014) form some sort of a rock opera with an obscure SciFi content quite hard to get into. The title means A Drop and a Sheep, and the characters are the Sheep (performed by Erkki Seppänen), the Woman (Paula Vesala of popular mainstream rock group PMMP), the Shepherd (Olavi Uusivirta, a popular solo pop artist), and a choir in the tradition of Greek tragedy. The Abso's main writer and vocalist Tommi Liimatta is the narrator, whose portion is at least 75 % of the whole. Everybody knows his limited, stiff vocal expression, a complete opposite to Roger Daltrey's fantastic multi-role contribution in THE WHO's legendary Tommy. This narrator-centred structure sadly decreases the operatic nature of the work; the guest vocals naturally bring some extra - especially the choir - but in the end not very radically.

But that, and the difficulty to understand the story, are not preventing this music to be Abso at their most inspired and exciting. The synths and guitars are used effectively in the very carefully constructed soundscape. Also from this point of view Pisara ja Lammas 1-2 is Abso at their most progressive. There are even some (mock-) orchestral nuances, and everything works very well. The music is both rather accessible and unpredictably interesting. The second album - which I may review sometime later - is stronger musically, but also this one is pretty rewarding - for all the old listeners and a bunch of new ones too, hopefully.

Hard to understand why this two part masterpiece of Absoluuttinen Nollapiste has gained so little attention. Of course it had very great reviews when it was released in Finland, but quite soon after part 2 had released it went to the unknown. Hard to understand also why there seem to be no interest internationally, because the reason can´t be Finnish-language singing: there are Haikara and Circle fans outside Finland. This is also musically, but specially lyrically just great! Really of course there should be lyrics translation into non-Finnish listeners.

The lyricist Tommi Liimatta started to make this entity already in 2003. Lots of thinking really shows, because in this album he goes deeper than anywhere else in his lyrics. Even this is scifi-story, there are elements from the ancient greek, even Bible. This is a story from the good and the evil. Unlike Adam and Eve, the "evil" sheep can´t choose, the evil was put into it. Also it´s interesting the evil is sheep which is symbol of innocence in the Bible. You can also make a connection to the Gosbels although in this album the evil is born in unnatural way. There are also elements from the trilogy drama of the Greek tragedy. With all these mythologigal elements the story is very easy to connect also these days. I haven´t listened very much prog music after seventies outside Finland, but at least in Finland there are really few these kind of concept albums made. Also even seventies prog I think only Peter Gabriel was capable to connect the fantasy and myths world into the present time. Of course it´s possible Tommi got some influences from Magma´s world when making his story.

I try to tell the story of the albums. There comes "planet good" near the earth. Representer of the planet is bored, because there is not anything evil in the planet. All the bad has put into one drop and he decided to send it to earth. Meanwhile beautiful lady, who seems to have some magic talents leaves her home and meets shephard. The drop falls into the neck of one shephard´s sheep. Shephard sees the dream that tells he should look all his sheep`s necks and put away the sheep which have a sign. He finds the sign and imprisons the sheep. But sheep changes to a man and seduce the lady and she´s get pregnant. Meanwhile shephard has just been in the near of his dying mother´s bed where mother warn him. The evil sheep wants to go to the "planet good" and they let it go. After that earth starts to die and shephard and lady goes also to planet good. Sheep has caused a lot of bad in a planet good and it will be executed. A child of lady and sheep is born, when lady understand what it is, she jumps from the balcony and will be pierced to a candelabra. Shephard looks to his "son" and son makes the other sheep run him down. And story ends.

Music has build into these albums to give a support to the story. So there are very little normal songstructures and without knowing lyrics it could be sometimes difficult to understand the directions where music goes. Anyway there are lots of great melodies, so the album can be enjoyed also just as music. To me this album sound and some parts also music reminds late seventies and early eighties Genesis. The sound world in this first album has something from the eighties, but not in a bad way. "Alkusoitto" (=prelude) brings some of the album themes as instrumental and in the end there is sung prelude of the story. "Planeetta Hyvä" (=planet good) is a slow sad piece. But the next "Juhlija" (=party animal) and "Nainen Lentää" (=lady flies) are true celebration of the melodic prog music friends with their really many parts. "Kohtaaminen" (=meeting) is one of the greatest songs in this whole entity, it´s quite bombastic at first, but changes quiet in the end. In a "Pisara" (=drop) sheep gets the drop and the song is very dramatic. In "Paimenen Uni" (=dream of shephard), "Lampolan Aamu" (= the morning of sheep shelter), "Lammas Näkee Naisen" (=sheep sees the lady) the music direction goes to the more ordinary. But the great prog elements comes back in "Lampaan Etsintä" (=seeking the sheep). In the end of this piece comes again the sung prelude theme, so the first part is almost in the end...but there is yet one left: "Lammas Saa Vainun" (=sheep gets the scent). Album ends in a very dramatic way, when sheep changes to a man and gets the scent that he can seduce the lady. After this end I really waited the next part...