Another case of "better late than never", let me tell you! Hearing 'The Spirit of Ukko' for the first time last summer, I enjoyed it, but never bought it until now. I blame too many metal music releases coming out every month.And I mean there's so much good things going on, not that I get all the albums...

To put it shortly, Kiuas perform vigorous metal with Finnish spirit. They mould heavy metal with sharing bonds with such metal acts as Amorphis, Ensiferum and Finntroll, especially as Kiuas also apply traditional Finnish melodies. Kiuas also reminds me of Silent Voices, thanks to vocalist Ilja Jalkanen, who sounds rougher version of SV's Michael Henneken, but also proggy elements in the music. With all these associations, Kiuas manage to sound quite original. They do anything from rocking beats to blastbeats (great skinsbashing from Markku Näreneva, by the way), providing a widespread take on metal. This shows guitarist Mikko Salovaara's composing skills, as music range from heavy metal to proggier and power metal spheres, and onwards to more extreme styles. The album holds together quite well, even if it's stuffed with so many elements. The music is catchy, but still doesn't give away everything on first few listens.

The keyboards play a big part in the band's sound, but sometimes it feels that they are overused, just like Children Of Bodom. Acoustic guitar and strings section on the closing song bring desirable change for synthesized sounds. Still, the music is skillfully performed, no doubt about that. As the music is vigorous and the band's delivery very energetic, the sound is a bit too clean. Okay, the music like this needs clean and well-balanced production, but this is too polished.

Fantastic cover art leads a listener to realms of Finnish mythology, paganism and warrior mentality. Ukko is the god of thunder, weather and harvest. I must praise bragging delivery of vocalist Ilja. His voice is powerful and he also shouts, screams and growls whenever appropriate. And sounds like Tuomari Nurmio during Finnish lyrics on 'Across the Snows'...

'The Spirit of Ukko' is Kiuas's debut full length album, so there's bigger things coming, I believe. Tasteful and delicate release for those who crave for Finnish sounding metal.

Rating: 8 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
03/11/2006 11:36