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Reviews
Ajattara: Kalmanto
27/12/07 || Global Domination
Pasi Koskinen, he of Amorphis fame, is undoubtely one of the most talented and versatile vocalists of the last decade. The man sings, growls and grunts in quite a few decent projects, doing a pretty good job in all of them. Ajattara, five records into their career by now with the release of “Kalmanto”, is the most well-known of his endeavours. Rightfully so. Ajattara’s music, a death/doom/black hybrid bastard, is not too innovative, but it can be a lot of fun to listen to.
Ajattara’s formula has been more or less the same since their debut. “Kalmanto” represents a proper continuation of their tried and trusted method. Armed with some nasty screaming and growling courtesy of Pasi, lots of heavily plodding riffs and haunting melodic backup from the keyboards, these guys crawl their way forward at a crushing, groove-ladden midpace. There’s no solos, the bass rumbles with lots of conviction, and the drumming is simplistic yet punishing. They shamelessly repeat this formula ad nauseaum, but the songs are well written, and full of weird little hooks and unexpected melodies.
The biggest statement of intent coming from Ajattara lies in the use of the truly fucken ugly sounding Finnish language for the lyrics. Finnish doesn’t sound like any other language out there, and guess what? It works fucken beautifully for Ajattara. As I recall our wise forum member and all around man-lover Tiago “Melt Banana” saying once, it sounds like Pasi is cursing with every single word that comes out of his mouth. Yeah, that’s how horrible Finnish is. No offense to the fine Finnish drunkards that frequent GD, but I’m sure you’ll understand my point.
“Kalmanto” has something that sets it a bit apart from their previous records though: the production. This is the rawest, more primal album Ajattara has ever created, and the production seems to be intentionally as “kvlt” as it could get for this style. There’s a palpable dirtiness underlaying these songs, accentuated by the low-quality, organic sounding keyboards, significantly toned down from their massive input on earlier albums. The atmosphere of a black and white horror movie this choice of production lends to the songs make for a gratifying listening experience overall.
There’s quite a few brutal, catchy tunes here, specially “Madot”, the best track of the record, which exemplifies the haunting quality of Ajattara’s music perfectly. “Turhuuden Takila” and “...Putoan” crush the listener with sledgehammer groove and huge death/clean vox choruses, “Suruntuoja” sounds just plain blasphemous and “Naimalaulu” fucken disturbing. “Alttarilla Aamutähden” flows nicely and has an evil, epic feeling to it. The closing title track reeks of malevolence and doom.
All in all, “Kalmanto” is a fairly even offering. Listeners will either find it boring or hail it as the dog’s bollocks. Ajattara’s sound is very consistent, and as I said, it hasn’t evolved much from it’s starting premises. I have no problem whatsover with that, it isn’t like I was expecting otherwise, fuck no! I know what I’m getting whenever I listen to these guys: some crushing, ill-natured dark metal with magnificent vocal work. “Kalmanto” doesn’t top “Itse”, which I consider to be their best record so far, but it’s fucken good for what it is intended to be. Bring it on, what the hell, I’m ready for more of the same!
8 horribly grunted Finnish verses out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2007
- Label: Spikefarm Records
- Website: www.ajattara.fi
- Band
- Ruoja: vocals, guitars
- Kalmos: guitars, backing vocals
- Tohtori Koulio: bass, backing vocals creation
- Malakias IV: drums
- Raajat: synth, backing vocals
- Tracklist
- 01. Ilkitie
- 02. Turhuuden Takila
- 03. Madot
- 04. ...putoan
- 05. Harhojen Virta
- 06. Suruntuoja
- 07. Naimalaulu
- 08. Alttarilla Aamutahden
- 09. Kalmanto