A new signing for Peaceville Records! You don’t get many of them to the pound, I think the last was Gallhammer and this band are not even yet listed on Metal Archives so who the hell are they and where did they come from? The second of these questions is very simply answered, Finland but for the first we need to go slightly more in depth. What we actually have is a bit of a Finnish master-class here. Lead singer is Mikko Kotam?k, well known for his day job as the voice from the excellent Swallow The Sun. We have a bassist and keyboardist who used to both do time in Amorphis, Marko "Baron" Tarvonen, the current drummer of Moonsorrow and Sami Yli-Sirniö who is in both Kreator and Waltari. Can you see why Peaceville grabbed them now then?
The question really is do they sound like any of the bands mentioned and on the strength of these four taster tracks which are a preview for next years album, the answer has to be a beguiling, yep a bit! Starting with the title track which will be extended on the album, we are immersed in doom and melody straight away, there is an instant atmosphere and then the growls come in with plenty of brooding bite about them. This strikes as confident and with the scope to be epic, which with the cast list behind it is no surprise. The track suddenly brightens and clean vocals beam in over a lush harmony, slightly progressive with a waft of the 70s’ about it and the two styles marry nicely when the track crunches back in with what sounds like a bit of Hammond organ lurking in there. The shortened length is a bit of a tease and it will be interesting to hear this extended although the way it abruptly downs tools and fades is quite tastefully done.
Piano leads into ‘Jewel’ along with almost weeping guitars, vocals flow from forceful to graceful and the music breathes rhythmically around them drawing you in. The quirky keyboards do actually remind of Amorphis and of the aforementioned bands they spring to mind the most, which in my mind is no bad thing at all. Actually having just said that as we go into third track ‘The Flame Of Serenity’ there is also a frosting of fellow Finns Insomnium about this too and it will be no problem for any publicity to use the words ‘for lovers of…..’ with this one. There are some odd retro sounding keyboards winding away on this track, again in the background and looking at the CD I see that additional keys on this number were provided by the ubiquitous Dan Swanö who also mixed and mastered. Last of these mouth-watering tasty morsels is ‘Floodred’ which again marries doom, death and progressive twists and turns and clean and angry vocals giving it a multifaceted feel. What I really like about it though is the instrumental ending here with the guitar signature that is pure Morricone and should be recognisable to any Spag Western fans.
The album is already on the cards for being one of 2010’s ones to watch out for.
http://www.myspace.com/officialbarrenearth
