PLAIN FADE

That makes it easy to tell right away which tracks are accessibly beautiful and which are a bit harder to enjoy because of more dissonant sounds. Vocals are this time completely absent if I remember right. All track titles seem to be names of specific locations on the lake. The main composer in the band is the keyboard player Juho Koivuaho, but this music is based on improvisational sessions by the lake. I think YouTube has one or two tracks from this album. Actually it's quite difficult to capture in words. Here and there I felt some resemblance with the more ambientish parts of 666 by Aphrodite's Child, or early Vangelis such as L'Apocalypse des Animaux. The mood is sort of introvert and thoughtful. There may be no clear highlights that would stick to one's memory, instead the album works as a whole continuum, letting plenty of space for inner images (of untouched nature above anything else, or is this only a presumption evoked by the theme? Well, urban or upbeat this is not!), and it's completely up to the listener how deeply (s)he is taken into that trip.

It's interesting to see that for the third album Antrhopogonia (2011) this group took a whole different direction, teaming with a choir - singing in Ancient Greek! - to make a grandiose concept album. What next?

The long opener uses over five minutes in totally hurriless ambience before the drums raise up the tempo and everything gets louder. The voice, as if heard from a distance, is like some maniac shouting strange sentences on government, war and god. On tracks 'Blue Skies Ahead' and 'Chips Falling Where They May' the frail, high vocals comparable to SIGUR RÓS get slightly bigger role, and again there are sudden shifts from calmness to disturbing edginess. Well, this feature is perhaps turning into mannerism during the album. 'Cerebellum', where the vocals increase the sense of anxiety and desperation, uses that contrast too. By the way, the nocturnal, desolate pictures go hand in hand with the music's atmosphere as they seem to whisper urban alienation.

'Art Brut Machine' brings some needed clarity and open air in the sound. Piano plays a sad melody, almost like a Zbigniew Preisner tune from a Kieslowski film, and is accompanied by cello and some vocalization. The nearly 11-minute final title track gets its first inevitable loudness contrast very early on. Then the steady beat of a bass-drum leads the way until the playing slowly fades away somewhere in the middle of the track. And so, very slowly, with gentle guitar strumming and some additional louder moments, the album comes to the end, leaving the listener alone in silence with his/her unclarified thoughts.

Within the ambience-centred post-rock field this is a strong work even measured on an international level. It must be pointed out that it's sad, cold and very introvert. I definitely wouldn't play it on a date, or on any gathering of friends. It is music for melancholy. Maybe even as such there could have been some more rays of light...