After the last year's debut album 'Auringon hauta' the South-Eastern Finland's Solgrav (means something like "sun's grave") return with a split EP with new extreme metal band F (formerly known as Fornjotr). The bands sound very different, which make them a weird pairing.
Solgrav have evolved into a pretty unique pagan metal act praising the nature. Based on black metal, Solgrav has dragged various elements from other metal styles and folk music into their songs. Mouth harp and accordion are utilized for good effect, if not to a great extent. There's no synths, but piano, which adds bleak essence to the music. Solgrav are closer to Norwegian Windir or ancient Dimmu Borgir than countrymen Finntroll. Echoing, raw production create Earthly yet mystic mood. While some drums, bass and guitars are pretty heavy, the snare drum tends to disappear especially during faster parts. Another weak point is vocals, which are one-sided, boring black metal stertor. All the words are sung in Finnish, but do not make that a hindrance. Two new pieces are good and the re-recording of 'Kristallitaivas', the EPs most black metal song, also works well enough. If pagan metal is your thing, why don't give Solgrav a spin or two! 7/10
F are fucking extreme. They make many a extreme metal band sound like ABBA. F's partition starts with industrial noise, which explodes into blast beating (by the way: flesh and blood drummer) death metal mayhem. The band is natural continuation of Fornjotr towards more extreme output. It's the tempo changes that stick to my mind the most, apart from fucking annoying deep throat vomit vocals (gotta be processed!) which just goes on and on. Lyrics are in Finnish too, but one can't understand much. This is heavy as fuck, slightly reminding me of low-end gnawing Mortician. The songs do not have much hooks, I'm afraid. But F's methods are though-out and they got their merits. Now I only want more memorable stuff from them, with different vocals, please. 5-/10
Rating: 6- (out of 10) ratings explained
Reviewed by Lane
09/17/2006 19:27
