Review Summary: A promising, if derivative, debut, well worth a download for extreme metal fans.
One of the most intriguing tendencies of the rock and metal world is the one whereby a group of bands simultaneously appear in any given region, all practising a very similar music style and clearly channelling the same influences. It happened in the 80's, with Bay Area groups taking traditional heavy metal to new extremes, all while German groups did the same with the incipient thrash metal genre; it happened again in the 90's, with Seattle bands injercting indie and punk with an extra dose of depression, Norwegian bands taking metal to new levels of evil obscurity, and Swedish bands downtuning their traditional metal and adding death metal growls to the mix; and finally, it happened in the 2000's, with North American bands injecting breakdowns into the aforementioned Swedish "death" formula.
But while these are the best known and most instantly evokable examples of musical "scenes", they are by no means the only ones. And at the same time Sweden grabbed the world's attention with their innovative mixing of styles, a smaller, neighbouring country was also developing its own particular brand of heavy music, mixing the more extreme genres of the spectrum with plentiful, borderline cheesy neo-classical keyboards and an extra sheen of melancholy. The country in question is, of course, Finland, a nation which can nowadays claim to have its own, personal style of heavy music.
All this serves as an introduction to 2nd Suicide, a band which from the first listen sounds unmistakably and unequivocally Finnish. Some thrashcore leanings here and there may initially lead us to think of Sweden, but the gargled vocals and plentiful melodic leads somehow conjure up instant images of Kalmah and Norther. And, sure enough, 2nd Suicide hail from the Land of A Thousand Lakes, joining the ranks of interesting extreme-metal acts to come out of that spawning ground.
Based around founding member Lauri Helenius, frontman Toni Toivonen and second guitarist Mikko Pekkanen, the group has suffered from severe formation woes, but has nonetheless carried on valiantly with their ambition of showing their music to the world. On their first demo,
An Epitaph For The Proud, they establish themselves as a band with enormous potential, as well as a knack for writing short and attractive songs which don't overstay their welcome. Sure, the sound may be a mere keyboard-less derivation of Kalmah, but the songs lose none of their appeal for it, and should please any metalhead who bothers to download them. The fact that the group's entire ouevre is available as a free official download on their website should serve as extra incentive to download these tracks, as they are well worth your time.
Ironically, at first listen, this will seem like just another derivative, unmemorable demo EP by a futureless band. However, repeat listens cause these songs to grow on the listener, and bring out their true strenghts.
Garden Of Stone in particular asserts itself as the best song on here - while also, sadly, the shortest - but the title track and
Oblivion fare well for themselves, too, and make up for the relative lack of interest of
The One Before Me. However, even this track eventually becomes charming, making for an overall very strong release.
Which is not to say the album is flawless. As noted, the sound is rather derivative, and all four tracks feature some of the same musical ideas, making them sound a tad too similar to each other at times. However, at its best, this EP is well worth the listener's time, and might make a dignified addition to any extreme-metal collection. As a buyable, physical record, it would be worthwhile; as a free download, it is more than recommended.
Recommended Tracks
An Epitaph For The Proud
Garden Of Stone
Download it officially and for FREE here: http://www.2ndsuicide.com/#music
