Lady Gaga - Born This Way (2011)

1) Marry the Night; 2) Born This Way; 3) Government Hooker; 4) Judas; 5) Americano; 6) Hair; 7) Scheiße; 8) Bloody Mary; 9) Bad Kids; 10) Highway Unicorn (Road to Love); 11) Heavy Metal Lover; 12) Electric Chapel; 13) Yoü and I; 14) The Edge of Glory; Bonus track: 15) Born This Way (Jost & Naaf Remix) 

Over the top, larger than life, sprawling - iconic.

Key tracks: "Scheiße", "Heavy Metal Lover", "The Edge of Glory"

The success of The Fame Monster gave Lady Gaga the artistic freedom to follow it up however she best wanted, and the stylistic break-out of that album had left people eagerly anticipating what her next move would be. These days it's difficult to convey accurately just how different and fresh The Fame Monster's theatrically explosive and wildly flaying maneuvres sounded in the 2010 pop scene if you weren't there to experience it, and back then The Fame Monster was still technically considered just a deluxe edition bonus disc for The Fame until its runaway success more or less turned it into a runaway era of its own. Yet, I don't think anyone was ready for just how Gaga chose to follow it up; even now, Born This Way is spectacularly one of the strangest albums to occupy mainstream space with such dominance.

The sound of Born This Way itself is a direct follow-up from the high intensity dance pop of The Fame Monster: Redone remains as the main producer and Gaga's second-in-command, with DJ White Shadow  making his debut Gaga collaborations in-between. The ideas and aesthetics though - including that unbelievable/bly terrible cover image - are directly indebted to 80s hard rock. Gaga is an old-school heavy metal lover through and through and Born This Way is through and through a hair metal record, with big guitar riffs, crashing drums and a stench of whiskey cutting through the hyper-produced electronic sheen, old-fashion stadium rock theatrics reinterpreted in Gaga’s own language. Born This Way is also everything Gaga made her music out to be, super-sized up and overindulged in. It doubles down on all the eccentricities and quirks that lent The Fame Monster its strength, attempting to bring Gaga's music to the same level of unpredictability and out-thereness that her increasingly bizarre fashion displays had started to reach. 

That clash of titanic concepts is what makes Born This Way so overwhelming and uniquely thrilling. The album is at its best when its pushing down the throttle pedal in a neon glow adrenaline haze and throwing together ideas that would take supreme confidence to pull off - which she does. "Judas" stomps through with an erratic pace like an elephant in a china shop that's having a bad trip, "Americano" is a rave-rock-flamenco hybrid that proudly ignores the fact that it shouldn't work, "Bloody Mary" resurrects pop's eternal fascination with a soft reggae lilt and makes it sound hair-raisingly ominous, "Scheiße" finds Gaga speaking nonsense-German over cavernous eurodance synths and a beat so big it hits right in the spine, the unhinged "Government Hooker" goes through moods and tones like it's switching radio channels from one extreme to another. These are songs that happen when no one says "no" to even the most ridiculous idea and everyone fully believes in the power of their underlying force - i.e. Gaga and her charisma that persuades any naysayer, even when she sounds like a woman possessed flicking through incoherent accents and vocal shifts as she sings through most songs in brand new manners and ways from anything before. These are songs that in lesser hands someone would have toned down but that didn't happen, and it's all for the better. They are excessive and manic, and while flamboyant they're almost dark with the bombast used to drown over any demons of self-doubt creeping in through every crack they can. Gaga always sounds like she's at the forefront of a great battle in each song, determined to come out victorious.

Sadly that energy doesn't quite reach the album's title track, even though it's inarguably the most famous song from the entire era. It's easy to view it through a modern viewpoint now and judge it as slightly tone deaf - the "chola and orient descent" didn't sound right in 2011 either - but it's a song that means well, came at the right time when LGBT+ was starting to break into the mainstream more visibly than ever and eventually it deservedly became the anthem of pride and underdog unity that Gaga desired it to be from day one, the (ultimately superfluous) "Express Yourself" controversy nonwithstanding. But despite naming the album, "Born This Way" has always been at odds with the rest of the record. In a album coloured in shades of seedy nightlife and desperation to break free from it, "Born This Way" is all rainbow lights and thin disco beats, with none of the edge or surprise that the rest of the album revels in. It never fit the album comfortably and almost exists outside it as its own entity, and despite being one of Gaga's biggest hits and nailing down her status as the heartfelt ally she sincerely wants to be, its appearance right at the start is almost jarring and in all ways - production, melody, really even the lyrics despite the message - it's throwing weaker punches than most other songs on the album. You can contrast it directly with "The Edge of Glory", another song that's covered in more neon lights than club spotlights and plays its hand brighter than the rest of the record, but also keeping truer to the album's heart. Its nods to the 80s are in line with the rest of the album (including a saxophone solo from Springsteen's right hand man Clarence Clemons) and it retains the emotion and will of what preceded it - it's the one last tearful goodbye to Gaga's grandfather and she sings it with all her abandon as the synths grow taller and louder, scraping skies as the album's ultimate pop anthem. As the closer it's the dawnbreak after the album's seedy nightlife crawl - the hopeful start to a brand new day. 

Though its more peculiar moments are what ultimately define Born This Way, as "The Edge of Glory" (and "Born This Way") shows the album is content to simply be a pop record at times as well. Sometimes perhaps a little too earnestly - the theatre kid camp of "Hair" comes to mind - but by and far even at her more controlled Gaga works magic here. The grand epic kickstart of "Marry the Night" which sets the album off with a firework display, revs up from naught to hundred after its beguilingly quiet organ intro and makes the case for the album's strengths immediately. It's exhilirating, life-affirming and triumphant - so basically everything you want a larger than life pop anthem to be. "Bad Kids" goes from stuttering synth stabs and grungy guitars to saccharine bubblegum pirouettes in an instant, and "Heavy Metal Lover" might just be one of Gaga's most essential songs, tucked away unassumingly in the depths of the back half but boasting some of the album's best hooks and production: ironically not leaning towards its titular style despite the rest of the album giving the space for it, its ethereal and crystalline synth-disco sound and that instantly striking half-wordless chorus are among the most powerful moments of pure pop bliss in Gaga's discography.

What mars Born This Way somewhat is that it is ever so slightly overlong, and this is even the case with the standard issue without the (rather common) deluxe edition's bonus tracks weaved into the tracklist - although my Euro-version copy does come additionally equipped with a perfectly adequate remix of "Born This Way" that you forget the moment you stop listening to it. Some of the chaff is easier to identify, namely "Highway Unicorn" and "Electric Chapel" which largely serve to build the album's internal mythos and aesthetic rather than act as independent agents of their own. That isn't strictly speaking a bad thing and not something I would always criticise, but they sound like songs designed for live stage interludes and their hooks and vigour aren't a match for the rest of the record; not to mention "Highway Unicorn" is where the album's loudness war PTSD rears its head the most obviously as its synths and drums reach clipping heights so much it's distracting. And with distractions in mind, when the album does depart from its general ethos it really, really sticks out - "Born This Way" including, but also "Hair" that's all bright highlights and hi-NRG stomping covered in the kind of cheese that's bound to split opinions, and I'm not sure it has a place here. But this was an imperial period for Gaga and even "Hair" starts to charm when its intensity just doesn't let up and it blows off in all cylinders so charismatically you forget what qualms you had with it. 

"Yoü and I" is the other main breakaway: it's where Gaga finally nails the classic rock piano ballad that she's been trying to pull off on both her previous albums, and would practically come across as a cosplay pastiche if she wasn't so convincing and giving her all with it, but what's it doing here? Besides maybe peeling off some of those theatrical layers and giving Gaga a brief moment of unarmed humanity as she so honestly both seizes in a kind of music she so obviously loves and reaches out for her man without any smoke and mirrors - "six whole years!", she adlibs with such spur-of-the-moment you can absolutely hear her giggle. Her eventual break-up from the man who inspired it of course now makes the song even more bittersweet, and arguably and very cruelly adds to its power. So even "Yoü and I" works and by the time Gaga's unleashing the final bombastic choruses you've fully bought into it, which both underlines just how much of an imperial period this was for Gaga and just how confusing the album can sometimes be.

It's not an album for everyone. The production is over the top, the lyrics can go from incoherent to cheesy to actually kind of brilliant in a moment's flash ("Love is like a brick / you can build a house or sink a dead body" is probably my favourite Gaga lyric but it also occupies the same song as "if offenced, wear an ear condom next time"), it's self-awarely high on its own pretension and absurdity - and let's face it, Gaga spent so many years spiralling off this that you could consider this the beginning of the end and see it for its warning signs and not for its strengths. Born This Way practically invites you to raise an opinion out of it with it sheer outrageousness, right down from that cover. It is an overreaching mess - but it's also a blast and a one-of-a-kind pop phenomenon. Gaga was a character larger than anything - that was her goal from day one - and with Born This Way she rose to that self-mantled throne. It's a passion project that has everything thrown into it because it had Gaga's worst enemy against it - her own expectations - and it needed to rise into the occasion. It did, with its big verses, bigger choruses, production that still sounds stylish even when it aims for a throwback vibe, the endlessly quotable lines in both content and delivery and, in a nutshell, Gaga's best set of songs. I'm a sucker for an album that dreams big and then grabs hold of that dream, and Born This Way ticks that box so well. If it were more leaner and meaner it might be genuinely legendary, but its shambling kitchen sink attitude is its own kind of iconic and it still stands out as one of the very best pop records of the 2010s.

Rating: 8/10

CMX - Cloaca Maxima II (2004)

CD1 (Lyijy): 1) Olet tässä; 2) Surunmurhaaja; 3) Jatkuu niinkuin sade; 4) Pohjoista leveyttä; 5) Taivaan lapset; 6) Lepattajat; 7) Ei yksikään; 8) Luuhamara; 9) Puuvertaus; 10) Pirunnyrkki; 11) Minne paha haudattiin; 12) Palvelemaan konetta; 13) Meidän syntimme (Edit); 14) Pyörivät sähkökoneet '04
CD2 (Helium): 1) Kauneus pettää; 2) Kuoleman risteyksestä vielä kolme virstaa pohjoiseen; 3) Vainajala '04; 4) Minun sydämeni on särkynyt; 5) Tuonen lintu; 6) Sillanrakentaja; 7) Sielunvihollinen; 8) Baikonur (Edit); 9) Tähdet sylissään; 10) Tuulilukko; 11) Myrskyn ratsut; 12) Melankolia; 13) Revontulten repijä; 14) Vanha talvitie
CD3 (Uraani): 1) Päämäärä; 2) Ei tästä maailmasta; 3) Väkivallan moottorit; 4) π; 5) Kvartetto rock-yhtyeelle ja solistille, op. 1; 6) Ehdotus ensimmäisen mainoskatkon paikaksi; 7) Ruisperkele; 8) Kolme kimaltavaa neitoa; 9) Kiusaajien kiusaaja; 10) Epäluoma; 11) Negatiivinen asenne; 12) Ehdota jotain parempaa; 13) Punainen nro. 6; 14) Helevetinkone; 15) 10¹¹⁸; 16) Huntu

Another set of b-sides and familiar favourites spread across three discs. And this time it's really, really impressive.

Key tracks: Of the previously unreleased and non-album material, "Puuvertaus", "Kauneus pettää", "Päämäärä"

Aion seems like a good time to pause for a moment and look back to the past few years, no? By the end of 2003 CMX were at their critical peak and regularly appearing in the airplay charts, having reached that glorious part of an artist's career where you garner respect from critics, fans and the general audience alike and have secured yourself in the pop culture history books. Cloaca Maxima II started out as just a b-side compilation until the band were convinced to do another triple-CD selection to cap off another chapter of their lifetime: this time summarising the fabled imperial phase years they'd been enjoying during the four album stretch from Vainajala to Aion.

The composition of the collection follows the original 1997 Cloaca Maxima, so the first two discs are devoted to a selection of singles and noteworthy album tracks, split between heavier and louder songs on the first CD (subtitled Lyijy - "Lead") and softer or weirder cuts on the second CD (Helium). There genuinely isn't anything to quibble about the tracks chosen: of course there's some personal favourites I think would've fit nicely here, but the overall selection is so strong that any complaints seem weak: you've even got both the ambient prog odyssey "Baikonur" (even if edited down to eight minutes to fit the disc) and the haunting synth nightmare "Sielunvihollinen", even though they're hardly the songs you'd first think to include because of how out there they are (but I'm glad they're here, both being among the best songs of their respective albums). The flow is also done superbly, especially on the second disc that ties together all its diverse tracts into a real epic experience that could be an album onto its own.

Both CDs also come with some new songs, non-album singles and remakes that are exclusive to this release physically. The two brand new songs in particular are absolutely top notch and throw away any notion of compilation singles being filler. "Olet tässä" kicks off the entire thing with fierce fury and vigour, going from nil to hundred in an instance and laughing maniacally as it does so and its machine gun of a chorus being a real tour de force moment; "Kauneus pettää" meanwhile creeps in through its e-bowed textures and spatial production, acting like a simple pop song with its clear and straightforward structure but just like in its title, it deceives. There's something unsettling to its cold and clinical delivery, beautiful though it is. Both songs join the CMX classics club immediately and are just as essential as any of the canonically bigger tracks included. Those include "Puuvertaus", a turn-of-millennium non-album single with great big guitar walls, a startlingly lush string section and an extended metaphor lyric that in its relative simplicity counts among Yrjänä's best - and the song overall is absolutely fantastic, its inclusion here being one of the best things about the compilation. The other non-album single "Lepattajat" on the other hand is far less exciting and probably one of the weakest songs across the three discs, making a lot of aimless hullaballoo for four minutes that doesn't stick in the slightest. The two 2004 remixes also feel like they're here primarily just because the original Cloaca Maxima had some re-recordings. The new "Vainajala" is a simple remix that only amplifies the guitars of the (great) original but is overall superfluous, and the re-recording of the debut album's "Pyörivät sähkökoneet" is fine but inessential, mainly just giving the listener a direct idea of how different the band sounds 14 years after the original's release.

The third disc ("Uraani/Uranium") is the b-sides compilation and it's the most deranged collection of CMX songs ever put together on a single disc. Yrjänä mentions in the (expansive and comment/trivia-heavy) liner notes that most of the b-sides for the period this compilation spans were written, arranged and recorded on a single day: the band would book a day in the studio just to record a song for a single bonus track, turn up with no plans and see what today's whims would result in. Sometimes that shows up all the way to the track titles ("Ehdota jotain parempaa" = "Suggest Something Better" after constant nagging about song titles, "Ehdotus ensimmäisen mainoskatkon paikaksi" = "Suggestion for the Placement of the First Ad Break" after a script that had been left in the studio by the previous customers), mostly just in the madness of the music. The headbanger hell chorus of "Väkivallan moottoreita", the half-acoustic half-metal mental breakdown of a folk song "Ehdotus ensimmäisen mainoskatkon paikaksi", the hard rock reggae rhythm and the ludicruous chorus stumble of "Ruisperkele", the electronic dark night of the soul of "10¹¹⁸"... I mean the list goes on. No idea (or riff) is considered too absurd not to include, and CMX at their most unhinged is often exciting and sometimes borderline hilarious. And right next to those descents into madness are some genuinely beautiful songs like “π” and “Punainen nro. 6” - songs that are perhaps a little rough around the edges, but which among the chaotic energy around them sound downright bizarrely lovely and uncomplicated. The opener “Päämäärä” is the sole brand new song of the third disc, a band recording of a song Yrjänä wrote for a TV show: within its whirlwind drums and guitars that split between screaming sirens and brightly glowing melodies, it somehow distills all three discs into a single impressive song.

The Cloaca Maxima compilations are odd birds because their 3-CD big box scope doesn't smoothly suit the needs of either the casual listener or the familiar fan, both of whom might find the contents a little excessive from different perspectives. Cloaca Maxima II hits that sweet spot though, where it serves both as a deep introduction to the band (or at least one particular era of theirs) - like it did for me when I first started to seriously gain interest to the group - as well as a rewarding listen even once you've become a convert. It's the type of compilation that all its ilk should aspire to, acting like a celebration of the career sumarised within and sequenced in such a way that even an experienced fan can get something out of how the songs they're intimately familiar with are presented. I still listen to the first two discs - and the second disc in particular - because they work so well as a hit-to-hit ride and are in such a satisfying order. The third disc is like a secret album unearthed, most obviously a compilation because of how it runs all over the place but still sequenced with care to make its screwball characteristics work. That third disc alone is worth the money here for anyone who enjoyed the four albums the compilation puts in a nutshell, but this genuinely doesn't feel like money wasted in a way some other, lesser compilations do.

Rating: 9/10

James Dean Bradfield - Even in Exile (2020)

1) Recuerda; 2) The Boy from the Plantation; 3) There'll Come a War; 4) Seeking the Room with the Three Windows; 5) Thirty Thousand Milk Bottles; 6) Under the Mimosa Tree; 7) From the Hands of Violeta; 8) Without Knowing the End (Joan's Song); 9) La Partida; 10) The Last Song; 11) Santiago Sunrise

Part prog rock, part musical - Bradfield indulges in his more conceptual flair, given the chance.

Key tracks: "Recuerda", "Without Knowing the End (Joan's Song)", "The Last Song"

I was as surprised as anyone that James Dean Bradfield ever released a second solo album - and that probably includes Bradfield himself. The Manic Street Preachers frontman is a workaholic who's always writing and composing, but he's faithfully devoted to his band. Since its release his attitude towards his 2006 debut solo album has been that of a formerly faithful husband caught cheating, embarrassedly brushing it off as a moment's folly, and any other solo work since has been various soundtrack work for small independent projects. Most of those have never seen an official release, and Bradfield has kept his musical endeavours tightly synonymous with his band. That long silence was broken by Even in Exile, a song cycle about the Chilean activist and musician Victor Jara, and even this didn't start out as an album or even Bradfield to begin with, but as a personal writing exercise for Patrick Jones, brother of Manics' Nicky Wire and Bradfield's close friend. Bradfield caught wind and Jara's life became a passion project for both men who have collaborated in the past in a variety of off-hand projects (including some of those aforementioned soundtracks), where they turned the poems into lyrics and from there into songs.

Bradfield is the voice of his band in many ways and Even in Exile isn't a million miles away from a Manics record - Bradfield's vocals and guitar chops are immediately recognisable even from a distance, and he isn't actively dodging the similarities either. You can't really ask a leopard to change its spots, much less one who seemingly shudders at the thought of breaking away from his day job - and so, Even in Exile hits a lot of familiar beats for anyone who's familiar with Bradfield's day job. Parts of the record could have well appeared on a Manics album, especially whenever Bradfield aims directly for the jugular: the anthemic and radio-ready "The Boy from the Plantation", the excited firecracker "Without Knowing the End" and the piano-guided stomper "Thirty Thousand Milk Bottles" all nestle in familiar Bradfield territory. "The Boy from the Plantation" in particular is exactly the kind of archtypical lead single which Bradfield is keen to include on each album these days, and its soaring choruses and biography-heavy lyrics (serving as the cliff's notes intro to Jara for anyone who's unfamiliar with him) would feel at home on any Manics album from the past ten years. But if anything, those familiar traits appearing across here display just how well he's perfected that loud and ecstatic guitar anthem vibe rather than showing any signs of a songwriter stuck in his own groove. "The Boy from the Plantation" is admittedly predictable, but when that chorus soars it's practically irresistable; and without "Without Knowing the End" Even in Exile would be a much lesser album as it zooms past with such life-affirming energy that's not been heard in a Manics album in a while.

And then there's the other side of the album. This is the first time Bradfield has worked on an honest concept album and having that clear throughline has given him space to let loose and experiment. Even in Exile is on closer examination Bradfield taking his lowkey soundtrack work to the next level by merging that level of aural storytelling with his usual rock band tricks. The combination is that Even in Exile turns out to be as much a prog rock album as it is a musical. The songs go through Jara's life from his unassuming beginnings to his tragic end, starting with a clear theme-setting overture ("Recuerda") and ending with a post mortem epilogue about his legacy by way of "Santiago Sunrise", with each key character in Jara's life getting their own their signature songs along the way. These pieces have then been arranged around unexpected time signature and key changes and the songs often start in one place and either finish in or detour somewhere completely different along the way. There's even three widescreen instrumental compositions just to further underline the connections to Bradfield's soundtrack work, including a cover of Jara's "La Partida" which has been transformed from a jaunty acoustic number to a bombastic spaghetti western theme. Bradfield has been subtly flirting with less formulaic song structures across the past few Manics albums prior to this, and Even in Exile sounds like the logical next step from there, taken to distances that he perhaps doesn't feel fits the core Manics sound.

It's not like Bradfield goes wildly mad with the songs - strong centrepiece choruses and tightly wrapped four-minute songs are an integral part of his writer's DNA. But he's never predictable either. You couldn't ask for a better opener than "Recuerda" in that respect, moving through its mini-suites of differing tempos and tones from subtle soundtrack textures to explosive stadium guitars, thrilling throughout its bombastic run as it acts as an introduction to Even in Exile's shifts. "The Last Song" breaks out into lengthy, synth-driven instrumental vignettes, "From the Hands of Violeta" cuts through its gentle mood by the later choruses that jolt into life with wild abandon, alongside many other smaller surprises scattered throughout. While his signature guitar is all across the album, Even in Exile also sees Bradfield compose with a piano for the first time in his long career and that's likely where some of the more unexpected sounds originate from; this most notably reveals itself in the haunting duo of "There'll Come a War" and "Sandiago Sunrise", both immensely atmospheric and spatial pieces where the lonely piano notes are accompanied by a booming drum machine and various guitar and keyboard textures respectively.

The instrumentals, too, are of note. They're miniature film scores played with rock band arrangements, perfectly telling a story through music alone with no verbal accompaniment. They feel a little superfluous (or abundant) at first, but they do bridge together the album closer together and help the flow of the narrative move smoothly from the triumphant beginnings to the bittersweet and uncertain end. Jara's story isn't a particularly happy one - he had a humongous impact to Chilean culture through his songs and he protested the political powers that be by bringing ordinary people together by singing about them, which then lead to him being targeted when Augusto Pinochet rose to power and shortly after his brutal death by the hands of Pinochet's squards. Even in Exile starts as a celebration of Jara and his impact but the chronological song sequence becomes more and more wistful the closer towards the album reaches Jara's end. The end is not without its glimmer of hope as Jara's death only served to gild his legacy and both "The Last Song" and "Santiago Sunrise" simmer through a mix of funeral sadness and burning defiance. The song cycle does genuinely feel like a story is being told through music and the instrumentals help depict what words can't through their atmosphere: "Seeking the Room with the Three Windows" radiantly explodes as one of the album's most out-and-out rock moments to insinuate how intensely the gear suddenly shifted in Jara's life, "Under the Mimosa Tree" serves as a spot of peace centered around the warmth of Jara's personal life, and his own "La Partida" shouts out with triumph one last time before the end.

The one particularly exciting facet across all eleven songs is hearing Bradfield sound so free-spirited and uncharacteristically jovial, seeing as how these days he treats his band with utmost seriousness most of the time. There's flashes of the old sly fox familiar for long-time fans revealing itself throughout Even in Exile, in its cheeky little tempo twists, jubilant melodic explosions and the general unrestricted inspiration it operates on. Writing for something with tangible continuity in its content has inspired Bradfield to tailor his music accordingly and despite its obvious standalone candidates (which work perfectly outside the context, for the record), Even in Exile works best as a body of work - and by aiming to make such a record, it's resulted in Bradfield bringing some genuinely new ideas to the table. It also makes sense as a James Dean Bradfield release specifically rather than as a Manic Street Preachers album by any other name, showing off aspects that might not ever be extended to this degree in his band's music. For a man who's on his fourth decade of releasing records - and for a fan who's followed those records for around for three quarters of that time span - that's wild, even ecstatic.

Rating: 8/10

CMX - Aion (2003)

1) Pirunnyrkki; 2) Sielunvihollinen; 3) Melankolia; 4) Fysiikka ei kestä; 5) Palvelemaan konetta; 6) Kuoleman risteyksestä kolme virstaa pohjoiseen; 7) Kyyn pimeä puoli; 8) Sivu paholaisen päiväkirjasta; 9) Nahkasiipi; 10) Ensimmäinen saattaja; 11) Hautalinnut

Where everything so far has lead to. The apex of it all - heavy, bold and stunning.

Key tracks: "Sielunvihollinen", "Palvelemaan konetta", "Kuoleman risteyksestä kolme virstaa pohjoiseen"

By this point CMX had started to operate on a cycle of reactions and counter-reactions, each album indirectly acting as the opposite of what came before thanks to the band continuously looking for new challenges. Aion follows suite, and thus after the pick-n-mix Isohaara comes something focused - terrifyingly focused.

Aion is a loose concept album with the running lyrical theme of inherent evil everywhere - spiritual, human, literal or metaphorical. That's where the terrifying from the previous paragraph comes in, as that shadow seeps through its every crook and corner. Aion creeps like it's constantly foreshadowing something moving from the deep any moment now, like it's preceding the final days and we don't even know it. It's not a dark album - there's enough light around its shades - but it's heavy and foreboding. Its walls of sound tower high above and come crashing down, one showman-like centrepiece song at a time. The wry sense of humour CMX usually carry around them is nearly absent here, and the stern attitude found in its place enforces the idea of the band knowing they were onto something important and for once in their lifetime they took it dead seriously. The album's only real moment of levity is the atypically rhyme-happy chorus to the lead single "Melankolia", which rise from the ominously bubbling verses into a delirious singalong romp. But even its cheeriness is more akin to a madman's laugh

Aion's actual legacy as one chapter in the great tome of CMX's journey is that this is the pinnacle of it all, the crossroads where everything meets and the rest shoots out from. Aion wouldn't exist without the three albums before it, the trilogy of development following the band's creative reboot: the raw power of Vainajala, the progressive layers of Dinosaurus Stereophonicus and the experimental freedom of Isohaara are all parts of Aion's DNA. Following the line-up shuffle in 1997 CMX had reinvented themselves as a muscular rock band with a pronounced lean towards all things weird and "artsy", and the five years afterwards were really the band learning to fly again in ways they hadn't thought before. The tangled tendrils of Aion is the sum of the lessons learned, brought together with a single-minded concentration that the nature of the previous albums didn't lend to. The result is a record that not only peaks the evolution that had taken place but it distills CMX as a musical entity, as much as you are able to sum them up anyway; you can hear traces of Aion in every album since, just as the discography so far leads to it piece by piece. There's very few cases I've come across that are as clear definitions of a magnum opus for a group as Aion is to CMX.

The body of Aion is CMX at their heaviest to date. It's not like the former hardcore punks have ever shied away from coming across hard, but with the muscular riff-lead guitar work and Peippo's fiercely technical powerhouse drumming Aion is often ramming through with bulldozer force. The producer has changed from one long-time collaborator Gabi Hakanen to future long-time collaborator Illusion Rake, and Rake taps onto the dynamics of the band's playing more than the texturally-oriented Hakanen did, and it suits this new incarnation of the band. On top of the lead-weight volume CMX layer additional ideas that run through the album tying the songs together: time signature flickers that throw curveballs throughout ("Palvelemaan konetta" taking it as far as it can by restlessly shifting in its skin while still going full steam ahead), sudden swells of string orchestras that descend onto the songs with near-violent bombast, and the appropriately haunting atmospheric passages providing the occasional respite. It's these that offer the album's most diverse outings: the cold steel dread of "Sivu paholaisen päiväkirjasta", the hopeless march of "Viimeinen saattaja", the circling percussion of "Hautalinnut" which closes the album like a rushed exorcism, and the resurfacing of synth-CMX with the ghostly electronic shimmer of "Sielunvihollinen". "Sielunvihollinen" is a heck of a thing to drop as the second track, especially after the wrecking ball opener "Pirunnyrkki" that rolls through the speakers with no warning. The sudden dead halt slowdown to "Sielunvihollinen"'s ambient murmur is the real start to Aion, the rug pull that drops you to the middle of the album's concept, from where you then try to find your way and emerge song by song afterwards. It's chillingly eery and yet beautiful in its wistfulness, and in its strangeness it's one of the key pieces of the record.

Therein lies Aion's card in sleeve: its cohesiveness and how well it all works together. CMX are consistent but rarely in sound, their albums guided by their oddball sense of direction which finds them frequently taking side tracts that make their own weird kind of sense in ethos, but which most of the time leave the albums as "just" really solid collections of songs. Aion makes sense as a whole entity, even when it diverges from the general path. Its songs stand strong by themselves - even "Sielunvihollinen" and the palate cleansing "Kyyn pimeä puoli" with its Up-era R.E.M. textures - and throughout the record you are treated to some of the best CMX there is. "Melankolia" is the token single that pulls you in but doesn't lose any of the album's core identity with its hooks, "Fysiikka ei kestä" is aching, enormous and yet almost oppressively crushing, "Sivu paholaisen päiväkirjasta" is so tightly wound and constructed that it doesn't sound something a human being could have written, "Palvelemaan konetta" is both brutal and giddily pogoing at the same time. "Kuoleman risteyksestä kolme virstaa pohjoiseen" was considered by Yrjänä at one point the finest song CMX had ever written and it has every right to that title, sharply slithering between frigid acoustic passages and electronically distorted outbursts until the strings rise and fierily engulf over everything, the song burning to the sound of heavy guitars and orchestras: an anthem, but not as we know it. But these songs are still even more fearsome together as part of one pack, with the album's dramatic curves moving through multiple songs at a time. As impressive as the individual moments are, Aion's allure is in the whole journey to its abyss.

It's a superlative review with no ifs and buts, simply because it's an awe-striking album. Aion is CMX perfecting their trick and revealing their hand to clear out the table, in one frightening and dominant move. They never bettered it but they probably even couldn't have if they had wanted to - it's a lightning striking in one place for enough time to conjure together an album that doesn't sound like it was created or written, but that it had always existed somewhere in the universe and then it leaked into our reality through some arcane means. It's a bold and hefty record that everything so far has lead to, and it stands fearsomely tall.

Rating: 9/10

I've Made Too Much Pasta - Swear I Saw Your Mouth Move (2017)

1) Fleas; 2) Raccoon Song; 3) Evil Boys and Evil Girls; 4) Never Ending Thirst; 5) I Had a Great Time in the Trash; 6) I Would Eat the Moon; 7) Macaroni and Disease; 8) The World's Not Big Enough for the Both of Us; 9) God of Outer Space; 10) Maybe We Can Steal Our Neighbors' Cable; 11) Lemurs in the Walls; 12) Ferret Without Any Whiskers

An abundance of vocal harmonies and passion project energy - who know raccoons were such great songwriters?

Key tracks: "Macaroni and Disease", "Maybe We Can Steal Our Neigbors' Cable", "Ferret Without Any Whiskers"

In my completely sincere opinion, one of the most exciting ‘indie’ scenes happening right now (early 2020s, if you're reading this much later on) isn’t found in the persistently cool New York clubs or in Northern English factory towns, but within the borderless world of the furry fandom. The growth in recent years of what now falls under the vague ‘furry music’ umbrella has been a joy to witness, given that for the longest time the fandom's taste in music was practically synonymous with bedroom dance jams of various (and often dubious) quality. This past half a decade, though, has seen an influx of various styles of songwriters with cartoon animal personas rise from the fandom almost overnight, and there's a particularly strong subset of those musicians who seek their inspiration from early 90s alternative rock and singer/songwriters, and often the weirder side of that in particular. Many of those artists also go on to support others, with everyone collaborating and bringing their unique flairs into each other's music. It's like an offbeat version of the Elephant 6 collective - except with a chance of someone actually being an elephant this time. It’s a genuinely exciting scene of wildly talented individuals and promising upcomers, flying completely under the radar of most people.

I'm not necessarily saying that Swear I Saw Your Mouth Move is going to convert anyone to believe me just like that - for one, it still operates on a distinctly furry aesthetic that some less imaginative people are automatically repelled by - but it is one of the most charming and personality-abundant releases in the "scene" it's in, and an overall good representative of the sounds so much of this fuzzy invasion leans in on and what makes it such a fun movement to follow. I’ve Made Too Much Pasta - AKA lead figure Scurrow and his changing group of companions, on this record primarily the fandom superstar Pepper Coyote and the stalwart patron of furry music Bob Drake - play their ramshackle pop songs with big nods towards They Might Be Giants and R.E.M., thrown in a blender with Tiny Toons and run through a filter of creative eccentricity that makes that combination their own. There's an accordion serenade about eating the moon, a jubilant punk anthem about moldy food in the fridge, a stadium singalong celebrating stealing cable and a snappy slacker rock cut about two giant monsters beating the hell out of eachother, among other half-neurotic, half-charismatic stories and anecdotes ostensibly sung by a rabid raccoon. It's surreal and it's cartoony, but the music itself is backed by serious conviction and fuelled by the grassroots conviction of turning daydreams into something real. It's fun and at times funny too, but it takes itself seriously and has audible passion behind it.

There's a lot of great, neat detail to Swear I Saw Your Mouth Move. The songwriting is obviously a big thing, and Scurrow knows how to write a great hook. That knack more specifically shines in his vocal melodies. The lyrics are full of witty turns of phrases and so many of the utterances and anecdotes are hooks on their own thanks to how they're sung, with the carefully tethered manic energy looping through effectively sharp melodies. The songs themselves are all dressed up in a mid-fi, lackadaisical raccoon-core sound that nods towards its inspirations without ever really revealing a clear bridge to them (which in a roundabout way means that Pasta's sound is their own), but it's an eclectic set of tracks behind the aesthetics. Quirky solo cuts like the opener "Fleas" (with its brief organ coda being the album's first twist of many) pave way to full-blown trashcan bubblegum pop ("Raccoon Song", "Evil Boys and Evil Girls")  and parallel dimension cartoon musical interludes ("I Would Eat the Moon", "God of Outer Space"). Beef up "Maybe We Can Steal Our Neighbors' Cable" a little and you'd have an alternative rock single that would've slotted just perfectly in an MTV rotation in 1992: by the time it gets to the handclaps and crowd vocals you've got a rock solid anthem at your hands. 

The secret weapon of the album lies in its backing vocal arrangements, though. From the joyous rush of voices in "Macaroni and Disease" to Pepper flexing his a cappella arrangement skills in "Ferret Without Any Whiskers", the album is full of voices wondrously hollering and harmonising, accentuating hooks and highlighting melodies. They contribute a great deal to the album's joie de vivre and overall energy, balancing between a communal band jam atmosphere and meticulously planned vocal orchestral flourishes. The aforementioned "Ferret Without Any Whiskers" is particularly incredible all around - it's the closer that turns the album upside down and suddenly reveals a level of vulnerability that the rest intentionally avoids - and it's overall one of the album's very finest in music with those dreamworld parade breakdowns, the lyrics and the suddenly emotionally spitting delivery of them. But it's the rich vocal harmonies that make it a grand stand-out, haunting behind the lead vocals throughout until echoing alone through the instrumental bridge in a moment of brief but powerful poignancy. As a backing vocal junkie I'm always so excited to encounter an album that revels in them, and it's a big part why I've latched onto Swear I Saw Your Mouth Move so much.

There's this search for the Holy Grail that many music geeks seek to take, where they hope to find something that sparks with greatness that many others haven't yet found; as if you're uncovering a hidden treasure that speaks just for you. The furry music scene right now is the most consistent place in which I keep tapping into that high, and Swear I Saw Your Mouth Move is there at the forefront of discovery for me. It's endured as a set of charismatic and potent - sometimes surprisingly so - songs that have become a fixed part of the listening routine, which have burrowed their way into parts of my head where they live rent free and pop out without warning at frightening frequency. It's a delightful, inspired debut speaking with its very own voice I'm not hearing much elsewhere

Bonus points for the wonderful CD packaging, with a fun lyrics booklet and a full comic detailing the titular character's (yes, I've Made Too Much Pasta is a character name) backstory. It all adds to the labour of love charm of the album.

Rating: 8/10

CMX - Isohaara (2002)

1) Päänsärkijä; 2) Pohjoista leveyttä; 3) Veitsenterä; 4) Minne paha haudattiin; 5) Isohaara; 6) Revontulten repijä; 7) Minun sydämeni on särkynyt; 8) Post mortem; 9) Lihan syvyyksiin; 10) Silmien takana; 11) Tuulilukko

No plans, "just" songs in a breadth of styles - in good and bad.

Key tracks: "Pohjoista leveyttä", "Minun sydämeni on särkynyt", "Lihan syvyyksiin"

The album that restarts with each song, as CMX themselves have retrospectively described Isohaara. Recorded across several months with no real plan behind the sessions, Isohaara looks like an obvious U-turn to take immediately after the prog epic Dinosaurus Stereophonicus: just songs, with little cohesion in-between them. Within its eleven songs you can find punk-energised thrashing around, wistful pop songs, heavy metal, an ambient ballad, an acoustic cut and radio-friendly pop/rock - there’s no connecting tissue between any of them and the tracklist may as well have been shuffled (even the band would start posting alternative song orders in later years through social media once streaming became a thing).

Isohaara wears its flaws on its sleeves and so I don’t think it’s too surprising if I say that it’s an unfocused grab bag of a record. It’s the first - and only - CMX album that doesn’t have an identity beyond a selection of songs packaged in one disc, and that obviously has an impact on the overall experience. Nor is it therefore too surprising that the quality is all over the place here, and that does include the kind of bottom of barrel material we’ve not heard in several albums: “Isohaara” only stands out because of its children’s choir (which doesn’t really add anything either), “Post mortem” doesn’t even do that and in the tracklist it represents a three minute gap in my memory. “Silmien takana” is almost a guilty pleasure, so deep in soft rock cliches that it could be a parody and yet it’s positively catchy even if it feels wrong. You can never tell what's around each corner, in style or quality. Albums with no greater focus can turn their messiness into a boon if they tap into a certain kind of creative anything-goes ethos and turn their wildness into their focus - in case of Isohaara, it sounds like a band who have plateaued and who aren’t really sure what to do except to make another record, and some of the songs make that abundantly clear.

Nonetheless, just as much as it swings low it does also score high at an even greater frequency. The lack of any guiding musical concept or theme means that CMX (inadvertently or not) steer the good ship Isohaara towards some really interesting sonic places that haven't really had space in their albums before. "Revontulten repijä" echoes within gargantuan space, sounding both mystical and futuristic as it stretches its slowburning rhythm across six minutes like a deep space funeral march; with "Minne paha haudattiin" the band who have joked about their occasional metal flair finally lean right into it, with crushing brick wall guitar riffs, an inherently Finnish coldness and even a genuine, honest-to-god guitar solo (which CMX never do);  "Lihan syvyyksiin" is at its core a good ol' CMX rock number but its arrangement shifts shape throughout, lending the song a restlessly twitchy feel halfway between groovy and derailed. Other songs drill down on the essentials without anything superfluous in the way, primarily the balls-to-walls guitar energy of the punk-spirited lead single "Pohjoista leveyttä" and the sublime pop gem "Minun sydämeni on särkynyt", the most honest and earnestly immediate song CMX have ever dared to release, far away from any attempts of self-sabotage or trying to make it weirder and it's all the better for it. Sometimes you simply need a beautiful melody and set it to simple, resonant lyrics to create something immortal - "Minun sydämeni on särkynyt" does just that and decorates it with a wistful, lush arrangement. In the chaos of Isohaara it feels like a breather in the centre, the heart that pulls the rest of the songs together as much as it can. 

It's a simple case of the good songs outweighing the weak. On an album like Isohaara where there's no red line running through - that sounds like a compilation of singles and their respective b-sides - it's that simple factoid that makes it worth a check. It's an obvious hold note, a stop gap release between two high profile albums that define the band in their own particular ways; in-between them, Isohaara primarily acts as a reminder of CMX's diversity. If you think of the album starting over with each new song, the tracks here are almost like individual teasers of eleven entirely different albums, of which almost all would have been worth a punt exploring more. And the worst thing about it is how easy it is to forget that, simply because it doesn't have a strong identity and thus gets lost in this vast discography it's in. Coming back to Isohaara always means to also rediscover it; just separate the wheat from the chaff and it becomes clear just how much of the good stuff there actually is in its song selection, obscured by memories of the incohesiveness around them.

Rating: 7/10

Physical corner: As per usual with CMX, a standard jewel case and a booklet with lyrics - this time also some moody band photos and a cryptic "So the writings would come true" message above the credits.

Ville Leinonen - Hei taas (2017)

1) Kultani mun; 2) Tahdon sinut; 3) Vastaa jo, please; 4) Nasta pimu; 5) Sadepisaroita; 6) Sinä olet hän; 7) Anna rakas raju hetki; 8) Ota kii; 9) Tyydytys; 10) Me emme laske viiteen

A brief introduction to Finnish 80s synth-disco fever. In the form of a covers record.

Key tracks: "Kultani mun", "Anna rakas raju hetki", "Ota kii"

The late 2010s/early 2020s have seen a renewed interest in Finland on how our nation experienced and interpreted the 1980s and the synthesizers that came with it, both in form of a clear inspiration in new acts as well as through various selector compilations reintroducing the known and more importantly the now-unknown acts for modern audiences. Like so many countries Finland too was seduced by the new possibilities provided by the shiny technology of the era, and the various continental European sub-scenes (particularly italo disco and anything that was happening in Germany) acted as a firmer influence than what was happening in the Anglosphere. When those influences met up with the grand Finnish schlager tradition or our other charmingly awkward cultural peculiarities - including the language that at best was a clumsy match in this new environment - they lended the familiar electronic sounds a distinct feel: an imprint of our own that has now started to be re-appreciated as newer generations have embraced it rather than be embarrassed by it.

The adult contemporary singer Ville Leinonen was a frontrunner in this regard with 2017's Hei taas, the sequel to his 2007 album Hei!. The first Hei! found Leinonen digging through the 70s Finnish schlager songbook, covering a selection of carefully chosen songs with a faithful and loving touch. Hei taas does the same but this time the scope is aimed at the 1980s and the uneasy companionship that disco and synth pop made with traditional Finnish easy listening music. Five of the songs are Finn-originals, the other five are based on translated versions of international hits which success-seeking artists and producers converted into a more linguistically palatable form: most notably Modern Talking's "You're My Heart, You're My Soul" ("Ota kii") and Irene Cara's "Fame" ("Me emme laske viiteen"). Leinonen keeps his versions loyal to the originals: the sounds and arrangements aren't 100% 1-to-1 but for most parts they're as close as you can get and the production sticks to the 80s aesthetic throughout and imitates the original synthwork as much as possible in tone (and most importantly the songs retain all those wonderful arpeggio fills that seems to be a signature move of this decade). Nine out of ten songs were originally sung by women and it's made very obvious in a very eighties-esquely stereotyped way, and Leinonen retains those original lyrics while keeping a straight face: there's definitely a clash between the lyrics and the performance here that's absolutely intentional and in itself a gimmick for some of these songs, most obviously "Sadepisaroita", originally sung by the then-12 year old Jonna Tervomaa and coming across nearly surreal when sung by a grown man.

The song selection is in general really well put together and bears the feel of an archival passion project where Leinonen has avoided any obvious big hits and instead he's chosen personal favourites and lost gems that time has forgotten. Some of these are real treasures and unearthing them for people who weren't there originally to discover now is a real cultural boon. "Kultani mun" (as made famous by Berit) is a dramatic 80s torchsong that's absolutely on par with any international classic, the aforementioned "Sadepisaroita" is lovely bubblegum sweetness, "Anna rakas raju hetki" (Nisa Soraya) has become a Finnish camp cult favourite and struts with confidence, and "You're My Heart, You're My Soul" is an absolute evergreen smash no matter what language it's in and thus "Ota kii", which doesn't dare to stray away from the original beyond the vocals, gets full points by default. Bringing them to the spotlight is a chance to give them the respect they deserve, especially non-translated songs - Finland could be toe to toe with the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) of the decade and before Hei taas and the various archival releases that have followed over the years, it wasn't something I really had realised. There's just one issue here, in this selection of various crate-digging catches - and that's Leinonen himself.

The thing is, Hei taas can't escape from sounding like a karaoke album.You can tell Leinonen is genuinely into this music, but it's also obvious that he's operating well outside his musical comfort zone and there's no way you can turn him into a convincing disco diva with his dry, almost timid vocals. His singing takes some time getting used to and even after you do get used to them, it just becomes more apparent that Leinonen himself doesn't actually add anything to these songs. If you play those original versions side-by-side as a comparison, you start to wish this was a compilation, a mixtape someone made to showcase some old favourites. The best of the best of the songs still shine bright even with Leinonen in the lead, but with many of the others you get this feeling like you've loaded up a track in a playlist and accidentally added a license-dodging "as made famous by..." version instead. Hei taas looks and talks the part, but doesn't walk it. Plus while the tracklist is mostly fine, when the album does take a dip it absolutely plummets. Funny enough, the most offending numbers are the onest that feature the most creative freedom in contrast to the originals: "Sinä olet hän" (another Berit cut) is destroyed by Leinonen's creative decision to turn the chorus into a monotonous churn with distracting backing vocals, and "Nasta pimu" (Kake Randelin) wasn't particularly good to begin with but the mindnumbing repetitiveness of it and the endless key changes and tempo increases that are piled up on its plain bones (which the song mistakens to be something actually interesting) turn it actually obnoxious. Even though Leinonen performing along a karaoke VHS for the rest of the album isn't ideal, it feels positive given what seems to happen when he finally doesn't.

I have a slight soft spot for Hei taas because it was what first piqued my interest to dig deeper into the Finnish synthesizer histories, but as it is sometimes the more you start listening to the originals the more the recreations begin to lose their shine. I practically feel bad for criticising Leinonen like I have - no one records an album like this unless they really love the source material - but it's him that has effectively converted this into a niche release and a collection curio rather than something genuinely unique and exciting. There's a great compilation inside these covers and the liner notes, which include brief biographies of the original artists and recordings as well as a general history of the period being paid tribute to, just further emphasise that. But that collection becoming a covers album simply leaves me conflicted.

Rating: 6/10

Physical corner: Standard jewel case, with a rather interesting booklet as described above.

CMX - Dinosaurus Stereophonicus (2000)

CD1: 1) Kreetan härkä; 2) Kansantalouden saavutusten näyttely; 3) Ei koskaan; 4) Iliman pielet; 5) Ohjelmansiirtoketjun mittaustauko; 6) Pelon enkeli; 7) Loputtomasti samaa; 8) Ilmestyskirjanpitäjä; 9) Kylmänmarja; 10) Baikonur; 11) Negatiivinen alkusoitto
CD2: 1) Jatkuu niinkuin sade; 2) Tuonen lintu; 3) Luuhamara; 4) Tämän runon tahtoisin unohtaa; 5) Kultaiset portaat; 6) Meidän syntimme; 7) Myrskyn ratsut; 8) Karsikkopuu; 9) Olkoon täysi sinun maljasi; 10) Suurta yötä päin; 11) Tähdet sylissään

The prog beast has been unleashed!

Key tracks: "Jatkuu niinkuin sade", "Meidän syntimme", "Baikonur"

Towards the late 1990s CMX fell out of love with performing live, and it eventually escalated in the band announcing that they would stop touring altogether. The whole hulaballoo that began around this with the media and the fans is now a somewhat infamous chapter in the band’s history, once they awkwardly reversed the decision just a few years later (and they’d steadfastly insist for years to come that they only ever meant a taking hiatus rather than fully cease live performances) but temporary or not, it laid out the groundwork for Dinosaurus Stereophonicus. The two-hour, two-disc giant indulges in CMX’s hitherto somewhat hidden love for progressive rock and it’s above all a studio album: a record written and recorded without a single thought given to whether it could ever be replicated with just four people on stage, utilising every and any technology available in the studio to fulfil a meticulously arranged widescreen vision. One filled with mellotrons, synthesizers and organs, string sections, hundred-head choirs and songs hovering around the ten-minute mark that would be miles beyond anything the band had released before from both a technical and technological standpoint. 

The two separate sections of Dinosaurus Stereophonicus aren't there just because of course you're going to aim for a double album if you're doing your big prog rock record, but also because of how CMX have chosen to approach this vague direction. The ethos is the same across both discs - intensely maximalist, polished to perfection and primed to explore the entire space between the full wingspan what the band are capable of. There's a certain kind of fearlessness I appreciate - and love - when artists take a studio-focused approach like this because it’s often the time when they redefine themselves and blow open new doors. Dinosaurus Stereophonicus is precisely that, and the extra long length serves as the means to separate the two distinct paths that these new paths have lead CMX to: one unpredictable and turned inwards, the other full of pomp and grandeur.

The first disc represents the former approach - the more askew side of the kind of prog rock that CMX pay tribute to. The songs are long and twisted with crooked time signatures with heavier guitar tones and lengthy instrumental sections (including the ultimate taboo - a drum solo), all the way down to multiple fully instrumental songs which appear as the lead-in, the mid-album palate cleanser (“Ohjelmansiirtoketjun mittaustauko”) and the outro. “Kreetan härkä” starts the journey with four minutes of synthesizer-warbling scene setting, from where the album travels through multiple heavy dramatic musical drops and not one but two big giants one right after another, and the conclusion isn’t really even an outro for the last ten songs but a sneaky bridge to the next disc ("Negatiivinen alkusoitto" - "Negative Prelude"). Of those two epochs one is a metal-adjacent churner with a doomsday choir ("Kylmänmarja"), the other a ten-minute ambient space-farer ballad ("Baikonur"). Taken as a whole it's some of the most unpredictable and audience-challenging material CMX have produced to date: more of a mood sequence than a string of evergreens, to be considered as a wider piece even if some pieces are a little easier to take in isolation than others such as mildly arena-flirting “Loputtomasti samaa”.

The second disc is actually the more welcoming of the two halves even though it appears last. The prog elements here emphasise depth of sound rather than hefty experimentation and they retain more conventional (even chorus-friendly) structures: less Tales from Topographic Oceans, more Dark Side of the Moon. You still have space for quirkier cuts like the janky jamming of "Luuhamara" and the atmospheric groove of "Karsikkopuu", but in either case CMX aren’t taking the wilder ideas as far as they did on the first disc and they’re placed right alongside the classic rock singalong "Tämän runon tahtoisin unohtaa" (complete with "hey hey!"s and cowbells) and the vintage prog epic "Olkoon täysin sinun maljasi" with a keyboard sound and solo lifted directly from the 1970s - both of which the first disc would chew and spit out without mercy. The defining element of this half is the presence of a grand choir that "Kylmänmarja" sneakily introduced and which goes on to appear throughout the second set of eleven songs: in the angelic harmonies of the anthem single "Jatkuu niinkuin sade", booming down from the skies to out-heavy the guitars in the grunge beast "Meidän syntimme", to embrace the listener in the galaxy-sized lullaby "Tähdet sylissään". Disc two of Dinosaurus is about the size of the sound and the options it presents, married to clearly distinct and melody-oriented songs - the closest thing to an interlude is the elegiac piano piece "Suurta yötä päin" that strips down the excess for a brief moment while paving the way to the grand finale.

The second disc is the easier way to approach and unlock the album - certainly based on personal experience - but if you were to listen to these as one big block of music then the order here works just right. The first half’s headiness and heftiness is the more intriguing initial dip into the strange waters of the record, and the second half’s more obvious anthems feel more impactful after the tightly wound tension of the first half and they lead more naturally to the grand finale - "Tähdet sylissään" is the awe striking homecoming where seemingly everyone and everything on the album is brought together for one last singalong, in an unashamedly epic manner that’s the only real way to finish something as massive as this album, and it’s a heartwarmingly beautiful song that radiates warmth and understanding, a sense of belonging. I would ultimately say that I personally prefer the second half, just because the new ideas are used to augment what is some of CMX's best songwriting from a melodic perspective: in particular the positively soaring "Jatkuu niinkuin sade", intense "Meidän syntimme" (and its awesome choir drop) and the tender dreamscape of "Myrskyn ratsut" are close to perfection. Whether they’d sound as immense without the extra production values is completely irrelevant (as this argument always is) because they’re songs built around that go-big-or-go-home approach and they ride that wave proudly and beautifully, every grand gesture hitting sweet emotional spots. 

That isn't to say that the first disc is a letdown or that it isn't without its merits: its more arcane approach is inspired in its own right and carries much of the album’s magic on its back. It is however an entity that I need to be in a specific mood for, largely listened to only when I really want to dive deep into the album’s layers. The question that naturally crops up is whether I’d prefer if the album was just the second disc, and maybe from a purely numerical rating perspective that would be the case, but I also reckon the record would lose an important dimension if these two halves didn't compliment one another. It’s what I mean when I say that the second disc unlocks the first: it’s the hook that pulls you in and draws attention to the album’s ideas and concepts, after which the ways the first CD utilises (and in some ways foreshadows) the same concepts and ideas becomes more fascinating to dig into. Not to mention that the first eleven songs are still very good in their own right (bar the instrumentals which really are there just to serve the prog vibe) and I'd lament the loss of its best parts - especially "Baikonur" which is a truly incredible song and the grandeur of which cannot be understated, floating peacefully in the galaxy and sighing with weary beauty for the most wonderful ten minutes. I’d happily stay within its soft electronic hold and comet's tail guitar solos for another ten.

Like many double albums Dinosaurus Stereophonicus is a bit of a compromise act between its parts, everything inevitably balancing out to something that’s a little lesser than perhaps what could’ve been with further editing involved. That'd defeat the point though and it’s not something I hold against the album - it’s an impressive piece of work with many incredible songs, some of which I consider integral to the band and moreso to my feelings about the band. The video for "Jatkuu niinkuin sade" is probably the first time I became aware of CMX and while it would take me another decade before I actually became invested in their music, it did manage to spark something that stuck around in my memory bank. Some fans probably lost the CMX they loved with this record for good given the roughest edges of their music had now been sanded off for good by this stage, and the way the album embraces its more "prog" elements and balances the melodic with the heavy would impact the rest of their career as they continued to move beyond the punk and erratic alternative rock sound of their 1990s. But I always think that each band should have at least one grand studio statement in their back catalogue and the sheer inspired excess that CMX rammed through with it gave them a landmark record and another unique iteration of their sound in their collection.

Rating: 8/10

Various Artists - Lost Christmas: A Festive Memphis Industries Selection Box

1) Field Music - Home for Christmas; 2) Haley - Like Ice and Cold; 3) Warm Digits - Good Enough for You This Christmas; 4) Rachael Dadd - We Build Our Houses Well (with Rozi Plain and Kate Stables); 5) Stats - Christmas Without You; 6) The Phoenix Foundation - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas; 7) Francis Lung - To Make Angels in Snow; 8) Jesca Hoop - White Winter Hymnal; 9) The Go! Team - Look Outside (A New Year's Coming); 10) The Cornshed Sisters - Have a Good Christmas Time

Sentimental, feel-good indie Christmas music - for once! 

Key tracks: "Good Enough for You This Christmas", "Look Outside (A New Year's Coming)", "Have a Good Christmas Time"

As someone who loves both Christmas and "indie" music, I've listened to my fair share of seasonal non-mainstream releases over the course of my time on this earth (and certainly since they became bizarrely popular in a post-Sufjan landscape) and let me tell you what - it's not easy to find one that sounds like we're celebrating one of the best times of the year. Many artists in the indie spectrum specialise in melancholy or straight-up depressed Christmas music - sometimes with a wink and tongue lodged firmly in cheek as they knowingly cater to the sad banger crowd, sometimes genuinely wanting to dig into that hidden sadness that surprisingly many ye olde Christmas classics carry under their winter coats. That kind of soft melancholy can be oddly cosy, suitable for those quiet evenings when you reminisce on Christmases past or you're winding down from the current one. But downbeat is downbeat, no matter how much tinsel you put on top of it - as evidenced by the many snide questions I've had about why I'm listening to such depressing music at Christmas.

Lost Christmas was born from sad events - the UK label Memphis Industries had to cancel their annual Christmas event due to COVID, and instead in its place the label decided to issue a compilation of new and borrowed material from willing acts in their roster. Despite the less than optimal change of plans and the title, Lost Christmas has turned out to be one of the rare Christmas albums of its ilk that genuinely sound like they welcome the season. It's happy. It has the kind of warmth that comes from genuine excitement for the season, wrapped with a bow of bittersweet but comforting nostalgia and coated with the tinsel of adulthood reality in comfortable measures. Even when the lyrics aren't necessarily excited about the Big Day, they still glow with a careful positivity: "Good Enough for You This Christmas" only hopes that whatever can be done do on the day is something special after the trials of 2020 ("it won't be perfect - it's still worth it!"), while "Look Outside (A New Year's Coming)" skips Santa entirely and raises its view towards the next year and better times in the horizon. That optimism is really resonant.

There are a few lesser songs in Lost Chrismas' short but sweet half-hour-ish run time - The Phoenix Foundation's twee robot take on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is probably the least essential inclusion but it raises a little smile nonetheless, and Jesca Hoop joining the push on making "White Winter Hymnal" a seasonal classic doesn't quite do it for me - and to be honest, I blame a lot of that on hearing British TV personality Alexander Armstrong covering it for his Christmas album and instantly gentrifying the song as a result. But even with Hoop's song, the sneaky interpolation of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" it secretly contains within is masterfully done and lifts the song up. Both turn out to be minor imperfections on what is otherwise a real treats selection. Some acts bat for team sentimental (Haley and their gentle acoustic landscape, the magic winter wonderland of Rachael Dadd) and others for holiday cheer (Field Music's Christmas musical opener, Stats' karaoke funk, the carefully romantic Francis Lung), and what they share between one another is a lot of heart and plenty of hooks. Memphis Industries' roster is full of quirky but delightful indie pop, and the acts selected here represent that really well

The undisputed high points here are the aforementioned and gloriously swooning "Good Enough for You This Christmas" by Warm Digits and The Go! Team's very Go! Team-esque "Look Outside (A New Year's Coming"), both of which have already become Flintcore holiday staples. They're stunningly perfect pop songs that adorn themselves in big melodies and a larger-than-life pop bombast and, they carry a kind of earnestness in term that really makes a great Christmas song; no empty clichés, but an appreciation for the feeling of the season, whatever exactly that is for each person. The Cornshed Sisters close the selection beautifully with another now-favourite: "Have a Good Christmas Time" is a cosy dressing gown, cup of warm glögi in hand and an idyllic fireplace crackling in the background, bidding Christmas evening to a good night with a gently-sung lullaby. It's wonderfully feel-good and like comfort food, and appeals to my soppy yuletide heart. The quiet Christmas greetings at the end are the only time Lost Christmas succumbs into real cheese, and honestly - it's perfect and I'll allow it.

That slightly cheesy happiness, the cosiness - it all hits the spot because (and obvious thing is obvious) I am a Christmas romantic: I've had the pleasure and privilege of having grown in a household where Christmas was considered a special time full of traditions and family closeness, and that's carried over to my own adult days. While I love my weird and wallowing holiday hits, I didn't realise how large of a gap there was in my collection in terms of music that actually reflects my own feelings towards Christmas in tune and tone, even if not always in lyric. Lost Christmas has filled that gap by surprise and it's now an essential holiday listen for me - and with the added bonus of it being one I can actually put on in the background without raising too many eyebrows from others. It came in the wake of a rough year for many, and it was made to lift people's spirits again when many of us were denied from spending the season the way we wanted to. In December 2021 - the time of writing this - we're still facing some of those trials and tribulations, but Lost Christmas is still here to glow up the room with cheer for all for at least its precious 34 minutes, still bright.

Rating: 8/10

Physical corner: none, no CD release exists which is a crime and I will probably pester the label yearly about it until they cave in just to appease my inane obsession. You've been warned.

Bat for Lashes - The Bride (2016)

1) I Do; 2) Joe's Dream; 3) In God's House; 4) Honeymooning Alone; 5) Sunday Love; 6) Never Forgive the Angels; 7) Close Encounters; 8) Widow's Peak; 9) Land's End; 10) If I Knew; 11) I Will Love Again; 12) In Your Bed

Finally dwelling deeper into those soundtrack-like qualities of the prior albums with a full on concept album, but that concept seems to come before the songs.

Key tracks: "In God's House", "Sunday Love", "Close Encounters"

It was only a matter of time until Bat for Lashes came up with a bonafide concept album given the love for wider themes that Natasha Khan has demonstrated in her prior albums, and The Bride couldn't be more BfL-esque if it tried. With so much of the Bat for Lashes discography centered around romantic notions that are more longing than loving and almost fatalistic in their devotion, naturally the first full-on story that Khan devises is about a bride-to-be is left alone at the altar after the groom is killed in a car crash on the way to the church. Amidst her grieving, the never-wed decides to take the intended honeymoon trip by herself while searching for answers and meaning in the universe. The Bride wanders the mountains and the seas, connects spiritually with her former partner and ultimately finds the first strands of will to go on, but ultimately the story arc is left unresolved - because how could you ever neatly reconcile such a dramatic loss?

It's always been obvious that soundtracks rank highly among Khan's musical inspirations, and one of the biggest compliments you can give to The Bride is how much it sounds like a score to a film she put her vocal tracks over. Khan weaves dramatic arcs, builds tension and sets up narrative threads in the way a director puts together a film - the songs act as scenes that link together into a greater whole, where everything serves the narrative first and foremost. You don't even need to know it's a concept album to understand that, simply because of how vividly the music tells the story. It's in no small part because the musical language Khan uses throughout is closer to film scores than indie pop albums: the sound here is deeply atmospheric and leaves a space for the narrative to course through, built on sparse elements which are used less as melodic tools and more as methods to decorate the unfolding scenes, where percussion is minimal at best. Khan's voice in the center is practically ethereal thanks to the vast amounts of space the arrangements leave around it, and she brings the central character to life with dramatic, actor-like yearning. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if someone did think this actually is an expanded accompaniment to a visual counterpiece, and I have to give Khan kudos for how The Bride is both a film and its soundtrack at once.

You know there's a 'but' though, and it's a two-fold matter. Despite its narrative cohesion, The Bride as an album is one of two halves where the first steps take wider moves with a bit of a beat to their step, while the second half sinks deep into that soundtrack feel by acting as singular suite of sustained moods. The first set of songs is closer to the established core sound for Bat for Lashes and does well merging this album's more widescreen ideas into Khan's ideas of pop songs. They're not among Khan's best compositions but they leave a lingering impression and in their own right are a stable ground to build an album on. The drama of "In God's House" is what truly kicks the album into gear after the intentionally and ingeniously sweet bridal march "I Do" and the nervous "Joe's Dream" act as the extended intro and it sounds a little special on that alone, and "Sunday Love" dashes forward with a nervous step and injects some much-needed energy to the record after four songs of moody marching. It's an impressive start even if not such a stand-out outside the album context, but what that initial run of songs does do is build up the tragedy and ache of the album, steadily winding the spring tighter, for that pay-off to come.

It never does. I mentioned how the album's story arc feels like it's missing an ending, and that carries through to the music. The entire bottom half of the record is one anonymous mood piece, exquisitely crafted but oddly empty: illustrating scenes to film which, at the end of the day, doesn't exist. It's rather pretty at places - "Land's End" and "If I Knew" especially - but in practice what happens is that the dramatic (and musical) build up of the first half ends up fizzling out quietly before the abrupt credits roll. Much of the final run of songs feel like segues or bridges between greater moments, but with all those important cornerstones missing and all you have are the thin strands. They're inconsequential and unmemorable at worst, and lovely enough ambience with no depth at best. Making matters inadvertently a little worse is "Close Encounters" which starts off that sequence of spatial ballads, and which is the one song on this record I would count as among Khan's very best. Made out of mostly just strings, her voice and a celestial choir of backing vocals, in this one song she consolidates together all the pain and longing that the album's central story arc is built around to a most devastating degree, with a chorus melody that is one of the most immediately piercing and disarming moments she has ever committed to tape. Everything that comes afterwards tries to do the same but sound like half-thought epilogues, all one after another: a stream of songs with barest of ideas that disappear into one another as well as into the ether immediately after hearing them.

I do honestly admire the ideas that Khan presents on The Bride and it has all the makings of a truly special Bat for Lashes album, one which would dive delightfully deep into the musical and thematic concepts that have been lurking around in the background for a while. The ideas around the production and the arrangements, the widescreen drama in the actual music itself and Khan's vocal performance (probably her best so far) are all top notch and clear takeaways from the album. It's almost unfair then how the actual songs fall short, and the further the album moves the less life it has. The danger of concept albums is when the concept overrides the musical content and you can see it happen here: the trappings are all in place but as a set of songs - in melodies, hooks, emotional resonance - it's Khan's weakest so far. The comparisons to soundtracks feel so apt once more, because so many scores turn out be incredibly meandering no matter how much you love the source material when the visual accompaniment they're meant to go with is stripped away. The arrangements for The Bride favour space, but the deeper you get into the album the more it feels like it's just emptiness. There are many things to love The Bride for - I'm not rating this all the way to the bottom, after all - but as a selection of music it's almost underbaked.

Rating: 6/10

 

Physical corner: A gatefold with a lyrics/art booklet. All in wonderfully glossy packaging throughout though, which I'm such a sucker for.