1) Discoinferno; 2) Antroposentrifugi; 3) Nimetön; 4) Aamutähti; 5) Jerusalem; 6) Vallat ja väet; 7) Paha; 8) Suljettu astia; 9) Epäonnisten liikemiesten helvetti; 10) Arcana; 11) Silmien ummistamisesta Nansenin galvanointiin
Enter the industrial disco inferno. Twists, turns and loops.
Key tracks: "Antroposentrifugi", "Aamutähti", "Vallat ja väet"
Where to start? If you are following CMX's journey chronologically then Discopolis is the first truly befuddling curveball they throw at you; and if you're just going through the back catalogue in a random order, it's still going to be a strange trip no matter when you stumble onto it. Let down by the self-production experiment of Rautakantele where they had the songs ready before they hit the studio, together with an ol' faithful friend Gabi Hakanen the band took the total opposite route for the follow-up. Instead of having already written the material the band started recording sketches, demos and ideas in the studio and then began to construct the actual songs by cutting and clipping sections together, utilising the latest studio technology (this is apparently Finland's first ever ProTools-recorded album?) to form a piecemeal record. And that still doesn't explain how the songs turned out the way they did, as the band took the highly technological approach as inspiration to head towards an industrial techno-hell soundscape where heavy metal riffs would mingle with remix-ready drum loops: where you can't tell where the irony ends and earnest experimentation begins in-between the mosh pit numbers, the heartfelt moments where the facade is stripped off and whatever side the sardonic smoky jazz club number "Paha" is meant to represent.
Discopolis gets a weird rep because it is a weird album, both on the obvious surface level and - once you get to know it a bit better - perhaps moreso a little deeper under the surface as well. It finds CMX at crossroads: after two incredibly successful albums with big ballad hits and a more nuanced (some might say audience-friendly) sound CMX were bigger than ever, but the internal schism with drummer Pekka Kanniainen's disillusionment with the band and the music industry had began to affect the group's internal chemistry and the band's future was looking blurry. Throwing themselves into this studio experiment that was so different to their former recording ethos feels like a carpe diem moment to try and stoke a new fire going - and the loop-heavy approach probably helped with the issues with Kanniainen too. It's an album of thrown-in ideas where nothing was too peculiar to be shelved outright if it had the possibility of finding a place in one production cut/paste job or another - and a lot of those ideas still stem from the same band who had been evolving their songcraft and were keen to move forward in that respect. The weird industrial dancefloor metal moments and their adlibbed Scatman-riffing ("Nimetön", and maybe the "di-di-di-di-diii-ii-ii-ii-iisco" in "Discoinferno" could count as an eurodance hook too) and the bonkers euroclub-goes-metal homages ("Antroposentrifugi", without a doubt one of the wildest songs CMX have ever released and so ecstatic in its insanity) share spaces with earnest moments of songwriting which clearly stem from the preceding two records. "Aamutähti" is a gentle lullaby decorated with beautiful horn sections and light-as-air backing vocals with only the drum loop giving it that overt Discopolis vibe, "Suljettu astia" is such a normal rock song that it feels awkwardly out of place here, and "Vallat ja väet" rises from the ashes of its noise breakdowns into a heartfelt and longing giant that has the honest strength of a band acknowledging they've made it big time and they're going to ensure it damn well means something, by precision-firing an anthem so sharp and striking it instantly becomes a landmark song for them. They're reminiscent of the peaks of the past two albums - and in terms of "Vallat ja väet" and "Aamutähti" specifically they surpass many of them - but in the vortex of Discopolis they're almost too serious and too focused.
It's a bit of a mess then: a band heading down a clear path, but intentionally disorienting themselves from it. But it's a really good mess, if a bit uneven. Discopolis is a little bit of everything: hilarious (intentionally or unintentionally) and emotional, heavy as hell and still at times incredibly graceful, successfully exploring new concepts as well as sometimes clunkily forcing them down the band's material. But it's always, always memorable and most of the time really interesting and still solidly written underneath the ProTools trickery where you can literally hear the cuts between takes. It is, as expected, a little uneven and if there's a fault to Discopolis it's that its flow is all over the place and in particular that it ends with a whimper: "Epäonnisten liikemiesten helvetti" is mostly just loud and disgruntled huffing-and-puffing which at this stage feels a little regressive, and the sprawling and outro-like "Silmien ummistamisesta Nansenin galvanointiin" is a great guitar hook aimlessly lost in search of an actual song to be in. At least "Arcana" in between is one of the best marriages of machine and man that the album boasts, highlighting that in another timeline Discopolis could've been an incredibly solid industrial rock album, even if sans its quirks. "Jerusalem" too isn't as good as its admittedly impressive choir explosion of a hook would give the impression of, because that choir is the only really memorable part of the song. And if you want an example of how the flow in general feels like a crapshoot, just check out how "Aamutähti" and its skygazing grace follows three of the album's most outrageous songs and it feels like the album abruptly hits the handbrakes each and every time. Discopolis is uneven and all over the place - but it's so often close to genius too.
I can absolutely understand why one person would be over the moon for this album and another would consider it a confusing dip in quality, and boringly I meet the extremes somewhere a little more centrist. Discopolis is as thrilling and inspired as it is an odd duck hinting at a greater potential; whether that'd have been by focusing more on either its earnest or its unhinged qualities, or CMX simply tightening the quality control a little bit more. But even with that caveat, it's still one of CMX's most fascinating albums and in a thoroughly positive way. It nails that unpredictability and askewness that makes up so much of the band's DNA and appeal, which has certainly already made appearances across the past five albums but nowhere so imminently as it has in these brimstone disco floor fillers and whirlwind industrial anthems. After Discopolis CMX would calm down a little and begin their second life as a steadfast and focused rock act, as if they deliberately trapped their excess madness within the confinements of Discopolis; while it's no classic album, it's riveting to peek into its Pandora's box nonetheless.
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