Monday, November 2, 2015

Kriminaaliset Metsänhaltijat ‎– "Valkoinen Terrori" [2009]

Artist: Kriminaaliset Metsänhaltijat
Title: Valkoinen Terrori
Genre: Harsh Noise, Power Electronics
Country: Karelia
Release date: 2009

Track List:
  1. Raja, 1918
  2. Riitakysymys
  3. Hukka
  4. Kuolemaantuomitun Hyvästijättö
  5. Valkoinen Terrori
  6. Punainen Ja Valkoinen
  7. Moment Of Silence
Kriminaaliset Metsänhaltijat are (were?) a very obscure harsh noise collective from Karelia (no idea if they're from the Russian or the Finnish part of that region). Almost everything is known about them (not too much, admittedly) is gathered on this page. If it's to be believed, they have 3 anonymous members and define their style as follows:

"Raw old-school industrial on the bones of SPK and THROBBING GRISTLE through the prism of Japanese harsh-noise and Finnish hardcore-punk. Nihilistic nightmare. Diffused synth hiss, pretentious harsh-noise arcades, crispy scurfy hateful power-electronics. Another spit into the face of rotten society and shitty system. There were a few closed gigs. Also, loads of recordings were made. Most of them have been destroyed. Some parts of tapes full of piss and vinegar have just been lost or erased during terrible hangovers. All that have been saved - works from 1997 and later. Those are sounds recorded on our 4-track. The sounds of sick buzz in our heads. Torn apart sheets of iron and stone walls of slaughterhouses spattered with blood. This is the shit rubbed in the silk white sheets of modern industrial. This is the true old-school noise! No modern bullshit and nazi crap!"

According to the same Discogs page, this particular cassette was recorded in 1999 but released only 10 years after (40 physical copies). Side B is said to be completely silent (hence the name "Moment Of Silence", but the only rip of "Valkoinen Terrori" I could find has it as a lengthy noise track. As a whole, it's easily one of the best underground noise releases I've heard so far, and the samples of old Finnish songs (the title track, for example) are nice too. Judging from the track names, the album is dedicated to the events of Finnish civil war of 1918. The band name means something like "Criminal Keepers of the Forest" (a reference to some partisans, maybe, but I don't know for sure). Expect much more obcure Finno-Urgic music to be reviewed on here in the near future, although it'll be nowhere near as noisy as KM.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Second To Sun - "Three Fairy Tales" [2014]

Artist: Second To Sun
Title: Three Fairy Tales
Genre: Avant-Garde Metal, Blackened Deathcore, Post-Black Metal
Country: Russia
Release date: 2014

Track List:
  1. The Trapper
  2. Merämaa
  3. Barmaley
Just like Thy Catafalque, Second To Sun is an avant-garde metal project whose genre can be loosely defined as "post-black metal". Both are basically one-man projects (with a revolving door of collaborators), and both were started by someone with Finno-Ugric roots. However, S2S is heavily influenced by modern progressive metalcore, which can't be said about TC. The first full-length release from S2S, "Based On A True Story", was more or less typical modern metalcore/deathcore, while the later releases (including this one) are more influenced by the avant-garde black metal scene. The mastermind of S2S, Vladimir Klimov-Lehtinen, also has an expiremental black metal/noise project called Voivotus, which I'll review a little later.

Just like other releases by S2S, "Three Fairy Tales" is influenced by Karelian folklore, and it essentially is a compilation of singles released by the band on Bandcamp. All three tracks are instrumental, if some spoken word samples don't count. You can listen to "Three Fairy Tales" here, and read a bit more elaborate review of it here.