PRESSURE FRACTURES

This Finnish band can trace its' beginning back to more than twelve years ago, when singer and keyboard player Janne Nevalainen first came across drummer Harri Kokkonen. They started playing together in 2002 and over the years other musicians have come and gone, but they stuck it out and the result is this their debut album which was released in 2012. At the time the line-up was completed by Joni Seppälä (guitars) and Sami Järvinen (bass), although Joni moved to Sweden not long after the album was completed. In many ways this is an album of the Seventies, as it has been heavily influenced by the likes of Family from that era and also more recently by Discipline, and while crossover prog is obviously the correct genre, that is because it hits so many different musical areas including that of hard rock.

This isn't a gentle melodic prog album, but something that has rough angular edges that contrast strongly with the fluidity of Joni's wonderful guitars. Although the keyboards are an important part, the use of piano is more direct and powerful, while special mention should also be made of Harri's drumming as there are times when he is working incredibly hard, with a far more rock bent than the rest of the band which also provides wonderful dynamics. It is the fractured nature of the music that makes this such a compelling album, although it does also have it's weaknesses, most notably in that the lyrics don't always work as well in English as they should and Janne's vocals do sometimes go off key. But, both of these are fairly small issues that I am sure will be resolved with the next release, which apparently they are planning at present. Personally I would not have included the final song on the album, as joke pieces only really work once and although I found this fairly amusing the first time I played it, the novelty soon wore off.

An interesting album, quite at odds with most of the current scene, and I look forward with interest to the next one. www.cozhe.com

Nice review by Kev for this Finnish debut album. On the informative side I won't have much to add, I'll concentrate on my own reception. Yes, the sound is very 70's style and with some similarities to vintage, guitar oriented heavy/hard rock such as LED ZEPPELIN. But it also has a unique, distinctive personality. This band doesn't sound exactly like anyone else, nor would anyone think this music came from the 70's. There are some Neo Prog elements especially on keyboards and guitars. Kev mentions DISCIPLINE, I could add TWELFTH NIGHT (Geoff Mann era) and ARENA in the spirit, even though Cozhe aren't quite that Neo-ish, they're much more earthly and hard rocking. The degree of progness varies a lot, some tracks are rather straight-forward. The synths seem to increase here and there after the guitar-heavy beginning, but Joni Seppälä's ballsy guitar work is constantly in the centre.

The music is written by keyboardist-vocalist Janne Nevalainen (except drummer Harri Kokkonen's 'Backstabber'). His slightly stuffy vocals are indeed a bit off-key and rough, but they fit pretty well to the powerful music. Lyrics are strong in their angst. The album contains (among others) three parts of 'Pressure Fractures'. The dealing with ill things of the past is distantly related to Pink Floyd's The Wall, without actual musical resemblance. The satirical 'Music School' part of the title work (which is miming a nightmarish auditioning situation with the teacher shouting "mistake!", "boring" etc. to the poor young pianist) is eventually the track that gets the most reserved reception. It probably wears off soon to most listeners, especially as it's placed questionably in the end. The 45-minute album doesn't include any totally boring tracks, therefore the "joke" would have functioned better somewhere in the middle in my opinion.

The cover art is really cool. Not a bad album at all, best of luck for the follow-up!