Lost Review Domain

Reviews for Ajattara - Äpäre:

User Reviews:

Your Review:

Very good, but not surprising [10 out of 10]

Ajattara demonstrates a consistency in their releases that is almost bad-reputation generating. Luckily, their style of metal is original enough and musically-challenging not to make them boring... yet. Of course, in the light of their previous three albums, one might expect them to have changed quite a lot in that time. Well, they hadn’t. This is good for their original fans (such as myself) but may bore the hell out of some people.

Their previous three albums are hard to distinguish from one another and they’re all good (but short) pieces of music. This is a trend that is continued on Äpäre. 9 short songs (all under 4 minutes, 3 under 3 minutes) and an arguably melodic outro, account for a bit over 32 minutes. However, this shouldn’t be taken as a disadvantage, because, as you will be able to hear, the time is fully exploited. What I like about it is that they don’t waste too much time on a certain rhythm or theme. They do the job in about 3 minutes and there comes the next song. Granted, the fundamental beat might sound the same for an untrained ear or at first listen, but it’s not so. The album brings quite enough diversity. The short songs are a bit strange for this style of music but I'm surprised to see that it sounds so good overall.

As usual, keyboards have their role in Ajattara’s music. They add a nice mysterious atmosphere and sometimes they’re in cacophony with the guitars but guess what, it sounds great! Pasi’s growls need no introduction, the dude does the job admirably and there isn’t anything I can say against him, especially that songs like “Tahtomattaan” and “Syntyni” showcase nice (although scarce) clean vocals, and that’s a plus for this release.

The lyrics are again in Finnish and it appears that Pasi doesn’t have the slightest intention of “internationalizing” his texts. Again, I regard this as a plus, as it effectively separates Ajattara from “the rest” and inspires certain “mysticism” to the music.

All in all, a rather “standard” Ajattara release, although I must admit that *there are* a few changes in the overall sound, can’t exactly say what. Maybe it’s the production (which by the way, I find ok). Perhaps with some other bands, I might be able to distinguish the order of their albums chronologically, but with Ajattara this is next to impossible. They got 4 albums out (at the time of this review) and even tough each album *does* have a spirit of it’s own, the overall foundation of the music is the same.

Review by: Theaxonn

Back to band page