1) Elementa; 2) Paratiisin Eeva; 3) Puolikas hyvää; 4) Konx om pax; 5) Verenpuna; 6) Sulaneet muovisotilaat; 7) Neljäkymmentä päivää; 8) Alkemisti
Something old, something new, and the return of the classic spirit.
Key tracks: "Elementa", "Paratiisin Eeva", "Sulaneet muovisotilaat"
With some (most?) of my reviews I like to provide an idea of the context behind the albums to give a little insight of how they came to be what they are, especially with these more "regional" releases where most people reading this have little to no idea what this band or album is. It gets a bit trickier with Alkuteos because CMX's website was hacked and deleted off the cyber realm in 2015; when it finally came back, in a typical CMX fashion the band announced they had no desire to spend energy trying to recreate the past and instead their website now (as it still currently stands) is largely just of a list of links on where to buy the latest releases. With the website, we also lost both the official biography where the band retrospectively revisited and reviewed their own past as they gave insight to each studio session, as well as the infamous Q&A page where in-between the band and the fans trying to outsnark one another they'd sometimes drop interesting trivia or detail behind the music when they were in the mood for it.
That means we have to take some inferred guesses, and I think the genesis behind Alkuteos lies in the band's touring activity prior to its recording. In 2016 CMX took on a concept tour subtitled "Rarely Heard Songs", with the concerts dedicated to b-sides, deep cut album tracks and songs they'd never performed live before; this meant that CMX got back in touch with some of their most erratic work, lost classics that the band had shockingly forgotten about and other songs that fans had begged to hear for years but which had been deemed too difficult to reproduce live thanks to their detailed production and/or keyboard/synthesizer heavy arrangements (CMX having never been a band with a particularly elaborate live setup). The tour was a success, and when in the following year when the band revisited their bonkers space prog opera record Talvikuningas for its 10th anniversary, they brought in another trick from their sleeves. The anniversary concert started with a "Prelude to Talvikuningas" section where the band, all four members now behind synthesizers and laptops, reimagined a number of thematically appropriate songs across the back catalogue. And if you ask me, it's that binge back into the deepest sections of their archives and the adventurous spirit bolstered by successful risk-taking which ignited a particular spark they took to the next album sessions.
I dislike the phrase "return to form" but in some cases it feels appropriate to use. CMX had been slipping across the past few albums, simplifying their form and content to diminishing degrees of success and the band was acutely aware of it as well. Alkuteos is inspired by the band's past selves, and CMX even acknowledge it openly via lyrical references (and one potentially coincidental musical reference - the near-end section of "Verenpuna" is very similar to the ending of Talvikuningas' "Kaikkivaltias" or is that just me?). The prog dials are turned up again and Yrjänä has gone back to cryptic theological prose in his lyrics, to the extent that Alkuteos could easily be read as a biblically inspired concept album - it all seems like a homecoming after years in the wilderness. But CMX are doing their return in their own way and so the 'inspired by' part is really just that, because the sound is fresh. Bringing out their prior synth escapades and inventing the "Elektro-CMX" form (which would continue to appear throughout the Alkuteos tour) has left an imprint on the album and Alkuteos is the most heavy on synths and programmed elements across an entire album's length that the band's ever been. It's not the synth-CMX album some may have hoped to hear one day because the band's clearly present throughout and they are rocking very heavy and hard; but the new elements have a fairly equal slice of the pie of the album's arrangement decisions: the new textures and sounds share an even footing with CMX of yore, and thus despite being reminiscent of the band's past Alkuteos isn't a simple retread. It's almost a hypothetical reset, a record that could have naturally followed up Talvikuningas (the metallic bass twang even feels so in touch with that album's sound world) while bypassing the decade afterwards entirely.
And for all its inherent mania (it is a very creatively mad album), Alkuteos is impeccably balanced and probably one of the best examples of CMX placing equal weight to, well, everything they're made out of in a single release. You've got your crooked and snarled prog (the chimaira-like couplet "Elementa" and "Alkemisti", "Konx om pax") and your loud and heavy guitars ("Neljäkymmentä päivää", "Puolikas hyvää"), but you also have the lush and welcoming melodic abandon that CMX used to be so wary about and now display so openly (the airy pop of "Paratiisin Eeva", the sky-reaching anthem "Verenpuna"); the warbling, keyboard-focused "Sulaneet muovisotilaat" is almost a brand new direction in its entirely. The indecipherable insanities are in harmony with the immediate choruses, like they had found a hidden formula after all these years; or it's simply the age and experience of a veteran band that has taught them to hone onto everything they are good at. With only eight songs and 45 minutes it's a compact run of songs where not a minute is wasted. It's almost economical in its approach, each of its songs assigned a clear and distinct role in the sequence where they all feel important and each jump out.
It is a welcome return home. It's the most inspired and exciting CMX have sounded in years, and they sound so inspired and excited themselves between the lines too. When a band reaches back into their past the danger is that they awkwardly try to fit into old clothes that no longer suit them, but CMX have brought back the spirit from their revisit into the past and the songs have a spark that places them alongside any past greats. Even "Puolikas hyvää", the now-expected token single that always shows any CMX album at its most uncharacteristically direct, practically refreshes the ruleset on its ilk because it's so excitingly headbanging it's almost ridiculous, and in the album's grim sterness it's a welcome flash of fun that most clearly reflects how renewed the record feels. "Paratiisin Eeva" is near heavenly in its unashamed ethereal suaveness, the twists of "Elementa" never stop thrilling. "Palaneet muovisotilaat" may be the biggest surprise, unassuming as it is at first glance in its role as a short breather among bigger statements. Its cold sound, drowned in synthetic production, is the furthest the album goes in taking its newest elements but in its heart it's a classic CMX ballad that has been given a new skin, and it makes it sound all the more chilling and yet strangely resonant and impactful.
In real life, I had partway written CMX off at this stage after a string of disappointing albums. They had become a band whose newest releases I'd only listen to thanks to a feeling of old obligation, until even that slipped through the cracks - the release of Alkuteos came and went for me without a single listen. It wasn't until a whim "well-why-not" mid-price bin purchase that it came to my life, and it was honestly a surprise. And having come back to it again for this review, I've been listening to it for a good week while holding off on finishing this review just so I don't have to cross it off my list entirely and I can keep returning to it. It's CMX finding a brand new wind, whether through fresh blood (the new producer Erno Laitinen behind the decks) or by reminding themselves of how great they used to sound by dedicating entire gigs to some of their most creatively wild material - it doesn't matter why, it's simply great that it happened. You could even consider the title of the album a pun, the likes of which Yrjänä loves so much: it translates to "Work of Origin" and while it's more obviously a biblical reference in line with much of the lyrics' theological angle, it's incredibly tempting to also see it as a sly nod for this being a new start.
Let's see if it lasts.
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