DISCOPOLIS

Despite having been quite an active CMX listener around 1997-2000 (my girlfriend at the time was a hardcore fan), Discopolis was the album that I refused to get into. It's still easy to see why. It doesn't have the emotionally strong pop sensibility of the preceding albums Aura or Rautakantele, nor it is progressively inspired like the ambitious double album Dinosaurus Stereophonicus (2000). As the essay sums up, Discopolis is hardly anyone's favourite CMX album. Instead it was a bold stylistic change also in the way it was made. It was the first Finnish album to utilize Pro Tools, and the digital technology (in which one not only hears but "sees" the sounds too) acted a central role in constructing the songs, with the use of sampled riffs and loop libraries. Even the lyrics of vocalist-bassist A. W. Yrjänä distanced themselves from the arcaic and mythology-inspired poetry towards urbane and mundane imagery.

The album's music is influenced by the aggressive 90's rock -- an area that's always been very distant to me --, by bands such as Prodigy and Nine Inch Nails. The first three songs, as well as several others of the albun's ten tracks ('Paha' is omitted on the reissue because according to the band it shouldn't have been included in the first place) are hard-edged and noisy. Discopolis is a cold, at times downright hostile album. The noisy guitars preceded the rise of the Finnish metal scene in the new millenium.

The serene 'Aamutähti' (= Morning Star) is the easiest to enjoy by those who like the most accessible pop- flavoured CMX. The chords were borrowed rather directly from David Sylvian's song 'Let the Happiness In', and the wind instruments work very nicely in the arrangement. Another more familiar CMX song is 'Vallat ja Väet' which seasons the poppy, melodic essence with sharp metallic riffs.

The vinyl's B side starts with 'Suljettu astia' (= Closed container). For non-Finnish listeners this notion will be totally irrelevant, but the chorus strongly reminds the one of Mikko Alatalo's notoriously irritating song 'Rokkilaulaja'. Two tracks in the middle are not very interesting. The 7,5-minute closing track -- its odd title came from Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams -- is the proggiest, or perhaps actually the only even slightly proggy song of Discopolis, giving a foretaste of the band's later Prog Metal works Talvikuningas (2007) or Seitsentahokas (2013).

If I would be more subjective with my rating, I'd give two stars only, but let's be generous for the album's revolutionary nature and for the informative and lavish gatefold vinyl reissue.