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