When Throat‘s latest album and their first for Svart arrived, I must confess I was a little put of by the sticker on the cover proclaiming them to be “The princes of Finnish Rock”. I guess I had a certain image in my head, which thankfully was completely eradicated by putting on the CD.
Opener “Safe Unsound” had just the right amount of gravelly submerged-sounding guitar to make me sit up and notice. The simple but abrasive two-chord mantra is crisp and clear, and when the vocals arrive, the voice is cool and knowing, but with a depth that makes you want to listen. A swirl in the background throughout adds texture to the drama and at one point, I was thinking if the Broccolli family ever wanted to make a leftfield suggestion for a Bond theme, this would have been perfect. Even the lyrics “Knives still shine carving through old scars” would fit, but then after about five minutes, the majestic soundscape ends and is replaced by blunt, insistent Swans-like guitar strokes, repetitive and feral. Over this, it literally sounds as though somebody is pushing old metal furniture and filing cabinets across a multi-storey car park and then tipping them down a lift shaft. It is quite intense, and for three minutes the grinding and scraping and crushing grows ever louder, ending in menacing shrieks of feedback. Now that is how to open an album, but it is hard to follow.
The band do well to follow it up and are aware that there can’t be any more of that kind of crazy nerve-shredding; so “No Hard Shoulder” takes a little look back at some of their influences and comes across as the missing link between Bauhaus and Nirvana, with the vocalist’s delivery lending it an accessible and human quality that is often missing from some of the hoarse-throated rock that comes from northern Europe. As the album progresses, for the most part, so the velocity increases and it starts to resemble something that wouldn’t have been out of place on Touch And Go. The characterful vocals help, as do the heavy, crisp and piercing drums that sound like somebody trying to batter down your door. They and the cavernous bass keep the songs very much on track and give them serious momentum, allowing the guitar to change the mood and feel as it sees fit. The vocals are dirty, the bass demanding on “Bone Strike” and the lyrics are harsh and angry: “My bones, they want me dead… My cancer’s spreading its legs, it’s them or me”. Here, the guitar is less prominent and clangs like bells where it is able to emerge from the rhythmic throng, while “Shortage” releases the sallow hiss of industrial decay, the song crawling and dragging itself through cluttered alleyways. The final three tracks are a post-hardcore gallop that picks up steam with every passing minute and the delicious minor chord changes of final track “Maritime” just bring a pang of melancholy to the proceedings before it all dies away with a creditable guitar solo and a surge of adrenalin.This is a great album with a lot of unexpected emotion and obsession. It ticks a lot of boxes, but particularly the opening track is a hell of a ride.
-Mr Olivetti-
