KAARMELAUTAKUNTA

Another really intriguing urban landscape artwork cover over a superbly packaged digipack from the Swedish label Silence, announcing a second album from those crazy Finns. In here , AV manage to make their sophomore more worthy and more exciting and more artistically interesting album than the debut. The music is still very much sounding alike to their debut: the line-up is almost the same, but they've added a second cello with Helminen, which is determinant to the group's sound enhanced but still totally acoustic (maybe some pedals effects here and there) sound. Käärmelautakunta is relatively darker and slower than its predecessor, because the group chose to expand on the darker side, rather than the upbeat breakneck-speed polkas. This generally gives fewer but longer tracks (9 instead of 13 in the debut), which are generally more progressive as well.

This double cello-metal was a real novelty here, as they manage sometimes to sound like an all-acoustic death-metal band, and I can tell you that this is still majorly impressive. If I used the past tense, it's because since this album's release, the concept was copied and over-exploited since, so the pioneering dimension of AV might escape to some. Some of those speeded-up rhythms make you believe that there is an evil-doomed axemen accompanying the band but no everything is acoustic except maybe the effects pedals. The way of recording the cello is simply incredible and who knows where exactly they place the micros inside the cello. Elsewhere and throughout the album, the Zappa satire of the debut has segued a bit to more UZ gloom.

The album opens on effect pedal-deformed music, before unleashing Crimson-like crunchy riffs given by the trombone and sax over the now-doubled bass cello drones, while its follow-up is Gypsy/Jewish jazz. I find that the early part of the album is not as interesting as its later half, as the next few tracks retread what's been previously said in their debut album.. Astiatehdas is probably the most impressive cello-metal tune, one played at breakneck speed, but outside the cellos bits, it's little more than a super fast Gypsy jazz track. The slowly crescendoing Lapsuudenystava is again treading on the Gypsy grounds, but its masterful build peaks in the last minute. Olisimme is another cool and constantly evolving track, while the demented Lentava Mato is the fastest track on the album, driven by Hanninen's craziest of drumming, but unfortunately hammers again the Gypsy jazz nail once more, instead of striking a different chord. As they had done in the debut album, they chose again to finish their album with a very dramatic track Hyva Mieli, where the two inferno-cellos are making Metallica sound like a bunch of softies. Excellent track to end the album on.

All together a more inspired album than their debut, this could have been even better if that operatic-voice singer of Hoyry Kone had participated. Indeed I reiterate my wish to have at least one or two tracks sung with this kind of music to break up the monotony - although I don't mean it the way Nurinio would in their future collaboration. Some might be a bit tired at the end of such an album, because on the length, this type of music can be monotonous, no matter how it is played or brilliantly executed, partly because of its complexity, but also this endless revisitation of the same Eastern European Gypsy/Jewish musical realm. Indeed AV is hardly the first (and probably not the last either) in this niche, as there is Miriodor, Interference Sardine, Rouge Ciel in Quebec alone, not even mentioning Belgium or even Sweden/Finland. But AV does have its distinctive traits to avoid sounding like the rest of them and if you want just one album of their, Käärmelautakunta is the one to get, because all you need is one of their albums as so far up to Mahaan, they sound pretty well the same, a bit too much for comfort and owning a second album.