Ratbreed is the band from Finland and their new record is coming out via Inverse Records so I was able to listen to it and review it for this webzine.
Finland is the land of metal as everybody knows, this relatively small European country holds a great number of excellent bands be it melodic like Stratovarius, Nightwish, Sonata Arctica or Impaled Nazarene, Finntroll, Children of Bodom, to name only a few more known bands. Ratbreed comes from melodic approach to heavy metal playing a combination between classic pumping heavy metal and fast power metal. This record contains 8 songs plus one cover song by Warlock. The songs sometimes remind of the 80-ies classics for example Helloween or Gamma Ray and early Hammerfall in the second half of the 90-ies. Vocalist Jasmin is convincing with her voice and not trying to sound like anyone´s copy so, that is another plus for this band. Musically, the band is incredibly tight and the production of the record sounds great like a metal record of this kind should sound like. My personal favorites of the record are “Blaze from Below” and “Through the flames”. This is nothing new or special or revolutionary but it is a decent metal album.
Circenses from Finland started as one man band project by mastermind Severi Osala in 2016. The band is hailing from Seinäjoki, Ostrobothnia. This is the album released on Inverse Records and I listened and reviewed it for this webzine.
The album contains 9 songs of melodic death metal combined with some prog elements. The whole thing sounds to me like more aggressive version of Edge of Sanity and I love this album because of that. I think that metal flows in people´s veins when they are born in Finland and this is no exception. I loved the melodies combined with blastbeats and keyboard background in “Lunacy” or tender and prog death metal parts in the title song. The vocals are harsh but understandable so this is one more plus for this album. As always, I am fascinated by the feeling of melancholy that Finnish bands create when doing their music and how their art sounds sad but also really majestic in my heart when I listen to it. This is great record, so go get it!
There is one excellent horrorpunk band from Finland, namely Scarecrow. They play tight and darkened horrorpunk with a lot of hardcore and some metal influences. Now, Jack 13 is their frontman and this is his new solo effort and this record is darkened horrorpunk in its greatest form, so I am happy I was able to listen to and review it for this zine.
Coming from the small town of Hyvinkää, there is nothing but darkness, horror and depression to come with this music. Also, all of the named above is packed into excellent melodies, harsh but melodic vocals that kinda remind me in some ways of The Crimson Ghosts vocals in some songs. There are 10 songs on this record and I loved every single of them. From the classic horror punk of “Nightslashers” across almost dark baladesque romance of “Burning angels” to awesome thrash metal ending of “Another song of Vincent Price”, this album rules! This is another proof that horrorpunk scene is so much more and so much greater than all of those who think that it is a fake and phoney scene made of Misfits clones. Quite the contrary, it is a scene where so many influences mix with original settings of horrorpunk and make the music and its art original and wonderful.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 