Holy shit! I've never heard anything like this from Finland before! This is brutally fucking destructive metallic hardcore (way more metal than anything) with plodding tempos and ultra gruff vocals reminiscent of later Max Cavalera era Sepultura, complete with pronounced rhythmic vocal patterns that came as quite a surprise and took a minute for me to get used to. Expect tons of chugging chord progressions with a few more sludgy riffs. Some of the tracks are a little too groovy for me ("Ihminen"), but I think if the vocals were mixed deeper in with the music I'd be okay with it. The recording's a little rough, but my only real complaint is that the vocals are too far out front, dominating the mix due to a low-end focused guitar tone. The rhythm section sounds fine, I'd just like to hear more roundness to the tones and a bit more brightness to the guitar texture. For the most part I really like the layout, which uses minimal colors and lots of awesome high contrast graphics. I wish all of the text had been done in the rough style typewriter font they use for the tracklist, but that's life. All of the lyrics are in Finnish, and I imagine the content is pretty pissed. I like this. The only true setback is the lack of tempo changes. It's all a little too slow and one-sided. The slow passages definitely work, but there's not enough variety to the tracks to keep things interesting for around 20 minutes - especially when most of the three-minute tracks open with about a minute of music. The doomy riffing that starts "Helppo Kuolema" and the more dissonant "Ihmisraunioita" is a damn fine example of what they can do, so I'll look out for something more down the road.
[Northern Hardcore Massacre]
Running time - 17:55, Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: Ihmisraunioita, Helppo Kuolema]
Northern Hardcore Massacre - http://nhmassacre.cjb.net
