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.