II

This album introduces itself starts with soft sounds, nice percussions and starting to roll without haste. Guitar lingers in behind with some electronic samples dancing upon the beat of drums and bass, leading then to dominant hard rock styled heavy riffs and "hold & release" approach with the rhythmic sequences, which are the main building blocks of many tracks here. The music on this album seems mainly to be building from these few basic elements, which are enriched with much details and there is time to do many musical things with them. Vocals create nice layers with good harmonies, though is not in very important role in my opinion. The composed songs stand upon melodic, tenderer sounds discussing with more oppressing elements. The more conventional rock songs are accompanied with more eccentric instrumental songs. From them, "North-East Passage" has groovy rhythms, strong travelling feeling justifying the name, and contains also nice violin. "Uotila" has electronic rhythms kicked in, brilliant details skimming around quite simple though changing basic composition. This is followed by a track drawing influences most strongly from trance techno music, throwing in really heavy beat (strong laser in Unaja, I agree). Interestingly this was maybe the best track for me here, though I don't like techno. Maybe due this fact this surprised me so positively. Great calm ambient moment starts the final instrumental voyage, this is for me the best element on this record, but the heavy riffed main parts don't totally succeed to catch my own mood. The album ends in feelings slightly resembling the last third record of Kingston Wall.

One group which is an association for me is Anekdoten's "A Time of Day" record (released after this album was done). The compared record has more organic sound and approach, and here the heavy side is bit stronger along with electronic soundscapes, but some harmonies and melodic solutions with the singing sound similar though, and both are quite melodic, minor key rock music, quite close to indie rock, containing cello, and not being very experimental avant prog. If you like heavy, electronic rhythm music with both spacey elements heavy guitars, this is good album to give a test listen if you would wish to purchase it. So not totally fitting my own taste, I like the live groove of this band much more, but finding pleasant records which open some new perspectives is always great.