Review Summary: Straightforward black metal in your face!
Impaled Nazarene was always known for their strange self-awareness in the black metal scene, since they never took themselves seriously. Furthermore, they often tried to mock and parodize the so-called "elite" in every way possible - for example with their often ridiculious stage names, or in the early days, album titles. But despite that, these Finnish guys still succeeded at delivering great albums - and their mockingly-titled orange assault,
Suomi Finland Perkele, also proves this claim.
As the main intention was not to revolutionize the genre with this album, so searching for progressive elements is completely useless in this pretty straightforward release. Briefly, the album is a mixture of the traditional second wave black metal offensive and the rather melodic Finnish branch of the genre, but also contains a tiny bit of atmospheric and punk elements. Despite the rather simple objective and formulas, the album doesn't lack variety and ideas. But under that, I have to say, I mostly mean the instrumental aspects, since the lyrical content focuses basically on very simple emotions such as anger, war and violence. But don't take this as a complaint, since what else thematic approach would fit better to a masterpiece like
Blood Is Thicker Than Water?!
Productionwise speaking, the album has a rather standard quality where all instruments sound pretty great, only Mika Luttinen's vocals stand as a less usual component with his bit hardcore-ish style. The album's only downside is that I feel they haven't shown their full potential, at least because a few songs are clearly not as memorable as some others. Personally I'm greatly into albums which mainly focus on building up a certain atmosphere and portraying a specific mood, even though they usually come with a rather unsophisticated presentation. And that's the case with this album as well, but I have to say:
"I care not!" - since I always felt that the album is an outstandingly fun listen, and has a (probably) infinite replay value.
Under a rather short runtime (barely over 30 minutes),
Suomi Finland Perkele offers great entertainment, contains catchy and memorable riffs; and I dare to say
Blood Is Thicker Than Water is among of the genre's greatest songs, ever.
PERKELE!
