CMX - Cloaca Maxima (1997)

CD1 (Physis): 1) Ainomieli '97; 2) Nimetön; 3) Kultanaamio; 4) Nahkaparturi; 5) Nainen tanssii tangoa; 6) Vallat ja väet; 7) Kirosäkeet; 8) Suljettu astia; 9) Elokuun kruunu; 10) Rautakantele; 11) Hiki; 12) Manalainen; 13) Kätketty kukka; 14) Linnunhammas; 15) Marian ilmestys
CD2 (Aetheris): 1) Hiljaisuuteen; 2) Ruoste; 3) Helvetin hyvä paimen; 4) Talviunia; 5) Turkoosi; 6) Veden ääri; 7) Aura; 8) Pelasta maailma; 9) Tähteinvälinen '97; 10) Tulikiveä; 11) Yöllisiä; 12) Mikään ei vie sitä pois; 13) Yö ei ole pimeä päivä; 14) Talvipäivänseisaus
CD3 (Astralis): 1) Musiikin ystävälliset kasvot '97; 2) Katariinanpyörä (Akustinen); 3) Siivekäs; 4) Hyvä tahto; 5) Joet; 6) Aamutähti '97; 7) Keskellä; 8) Marmori; 9) Seittemän Jeesusta; 10) Riitti; 11) Saatana; 12) Pimeä maa (Live); 13) Näkyjen pitelijä; 14) Shakti; 15) Reuna

A summarised chronicle of the first six albums and the assorted b-sides and rarities; and the particularly exciting new songs tucked away.

Key tracks: Out of the new and "new" songs - "Ainomieli '97", "Siivekäs", "Saatana"

CMX have made it a habit to close chapters of their story through the Cloaca Maxima compendiums, and the very first arrived at a particularly relevant time: drummer Pekka Kanniainen had left the band per mutual agreement by the time the compilation was out (his final recordings with CMX are here), which naturally left CMX reflecting on where they were and how they'd got there. They had been cult underdog punks who had somehow turned into national hitmakers, and the stylistic chaos of Discopolis had stirred the pot so that the next steps the temporary trio would take were still unclear both to everyone and themselves. The three discs of Cloaca Maxima act as the chronicles of that strange journey from the gritty beginning to the present: the first two collect together the singles and favourite album cuts, split between the louder, rowdier and more direct songs on disc 1 and slower, prettier and stranger ones on disc 2, while the third disc presents b-sides, previously unreleased recordings and brand new songs. Thorough and sprawling, it acts as the full stop for their first lifecycle before moving onto the next.

The third disc is going to be the big point of interest for most people who listen to this compilation at this point, so let's tackle that first. From a b-side perspective CMX weren't at this stage particularly wild with the format, and so the third CD largely consists of direct outtakes from their parent albums and it's clear why some of these weren't considered strong enough to make it to the actual records in the end. That isn't to say they're disappointing songs (only the largely pointless live version of "Pimeä maa" and thoroughly by-the-numbers "Hyvä tahto" go there), but any b-side maniac looking for that next hidden gem is unlikely to find many here. That said, there are some particularly delectable rarities here: the acoustic version of "Katariinanpyörä" is better than the original album version, the bonkers "Seittemän jeesusta" seems to be created out of elements from completely different songs (that bass groove with that acoustic picking and those odd electic guitar interjections?) and thoroughly stands out from the crowd, and "Saatana" tricks the listener with its acoustic first half before it unleashes its skeletal beat, off-kilter flute flourishes and a hell of a chorus which could've been on a single in itself. The re-recording of the early EP cut "Musiikin ystävälliset kasvot" which starts the third disc is effectively here to canonise one of their best early songs as part of the contemporary CMX lore, with the arrangement of the original version retained but everything else beefed up, and so the song is objectively improved as its maniac rock gets some muscles under it. The same goes for the re-recording of Aurinko's "Ainomieli" which receives its official coronation as one of the band's greats after being almost dismissed from its parent album in fear of being too commercial - now, here, it's showered with the respect it deserves and gets a similar faithful boost in performance and production which makes it the definitive version of the song (and it was also finally released as a single to promote the compilation). The other two 1997 re-takes across the three discs are on the other hand much less impressive: "Tähteinvälinen" has been given a new mix with a little more edge but it's still a semi-awkward song, and the brand new (and so thoroughly 1990s) trip hop -esque remix of "Aamutähti" is not a patch on the original and really shouldn't be here taking away its spot

The actual highlights are instead in the brand new songs - five in total, but three in particular. Following directly from Discopolis CMX have continued to flirt with electronic elements (and the prevalent use of drum machines could be seen as the band experimenting around without a drummer, given the circumstances), but the spirit of these songs is closer to the somber and graceful Rautakantele; "Joet" in fact is a Rautakantele outtake that wasn't finished in time for the album and which was now finally given the chance to get recorded. "Siivekäs", "Joet" and "Marmori" are bound together by their slower tempos, acoustic guitars guiding the rhythm and the gorgeous string arrangements that act as the dominant element of each song, with atypically longing and romantic lyrics from Yrjänä - all very Rautakantele, but the first two still retaining the programmed drums and synthesizer swerves of the directly preceding album. The gentle "Joet" and the more CMX-leaning guitar walls of "Marmori" are both beautiful songs in their own right, but "Siivekäs" is the gem of the entire compilation - it leans so heavily into its synthetic elements that it could be considered CMX's take on synth pop, and within the atmospheric production and breathtaking strings lies a truly phenomenal song full of pathos, emotion and stand-out melodic bliss. It's a strange creature which sounds both classic at first sight and yet even now almost subversive for the band, but above all it's an all-time great for the band - a swooning, epic, beautiful creature out of sync with everything else on the compilation but which rivals the very best the past albums had to offer. "Shakti" and "Piste" which close the compilation are on the other hand more direct Discopolis remnants, with "Shakti" a deranged clipshow of a quasi-dance song composed out of segments left on the editing room floor and "Piste" acting as its detached outro - they're not a patch on the other three songs and they'll never be anything but curios for the fans (and obvious disc filler), but in the right mindset can be a strange amount of fun.

As far as the actual Best Of portion of Cloaca Maxima goes, it does serve the purpose of really putting it into perspective how exciting CMX could be across their first six albums. The band's first decade was an uneven ride where inconsistency was often the norm and so while the first two discs represent a rather cleaned-up version of the discography so far with the dodgy bits polished off, it also highlights perfectly why those albums are worth a visit because there's so many great moments scattered across them. The selection isn't perfect (where's "G"? The "Aamutähti" remix?) and it skews strongly towards the trilogy of hit records from Aura onwards: the debut album Kolmikärki is only represented by a single song ("Nahkaparturi", which is a fine representation of it at least), though it is explained in the extensive liner notes that the band struggled to pair up the shoddy sound quality of the early ears next to to the more professionally recorded follow-ups. Even with the quirks, it's hard to deny just how solid the run of songs across both discs is and especially so on the non-stop rock and roll fierceness of the first disc, with a hit after hit after an obscure album cut which doesn't pale all in comparison to the canon classics. Despite the uneven weighting between the six albums and the scattered early EPs, the selection that did make the cut do represent all the sides of this era of CMX accurately and they work so tightly as a set of songs (the flow from the hymnal "Hiljaisuuteen" to the gentle "Ruoste" is actually ingenius) that even an established fan can get a kick out of listening to this once in a while. As an added bonus, and if you know Finnish, the liner notes feature Yrjänä's nutshell thoughts on each song ranging from interesting trivia and anecdotes to delightfully Nordic bluntness ("A song where I got quite close to what I wanted", he so elaborately writes on "Talvipäivänseisaus"). 

The first Cloaca Maxima feels particularly poignant given the sheer amount of development CMX went through during its timeframe, how Kanniainen's departure gave the band a natural sequence break and how from the next album (and the next drummer) onward they really did feel like CMX 2.0. This, then, is the summarised chronicle of CMX's successes so far, a reminder of how they became one of Finland's most influential rock acts. In the playlist age it's often easy to forget how compilations like these were often treated like important milestones for artists, in particular whenever actual care was taken during the drafting process - and Cloaca Maxima really does feel like the well deserved rest at the winner's podium after the first race.

Rating: 8/10

Physical corner: The three discs are stored in a "chubby" style multi-CD jewel case, which gives it that extra physical impression and suits the chapter-defining archival nature of the selection. The liner notes, as detailed before, contain Yrjänä's descriptions on each song and all the lyrics for the third disc.

Bat for Lashes - Fur and Gold (2006)

1) Horse and I; 2) Trophy; 3) Tahiti; 4) What's a Girl to Do?; 5) Sad Eyes; 6) The Wizard; 7) Prescilla; 8) Bat's Mouth; 9) Seal Jubilee; 10) Sarah; 11) I Saw a Light

Welcome to the mystical world of Bat for Lashes - even though it's not quite the welcome you once might've thought it to be.

Key tracks: "Horse and I", "Trophy", "What's a Girl to Do?"

Time has unexpectedly removed some of the charm of Fur and Gold. Back in 2006 this was an incredibly exciting debut release from a new artist with a particularly characteristic touch to her music, and whose debut gave us the chance to peer into the musical fairytale world she called her own. Since then we've had many more Bat for Lashes releases which have built up on that initial excitement, and which have at the same time accidentally revealed just how one-note Natasha Khan's debut actually was - and in retrospect, just how much of its magic was reliant on two songs in particular. One of them, "Horse and I", is one of the defining debut album openers of the new millennium - a thrilling journey of a song that sets out Khan's entire ethos and manifesto and then crafts a world around those in just under three minutes, built on a small number of very particular elements (with a harpsichord of all things in the lead role) but marching on like a juggernaut, making for an incredibly powerful introduction. The other, "What's a Girl to Do?", takes those same ideas and marries them to a more traditional pop song format with the result coming across like a gothic nightmare take on Motown; with Khan's alluring personality, an instantly attention-demanding set of hooks and a swooning, theatrically bombastic chorus, as well a classic music video, it easily set itself out as one of 2006's best singles and still commands attention the moment the music player queues it up.

Beyond those songs Fur and Gold just isn't as superlative as it felt originally though, which is as strange as it is a little sad. Khan has a very particular vision for her music - all widescreen, dramatic and mystical, lyrics full of wild conjurations and bat lightning hearts - and in her later albums she's weaved those ideas into a multitude of sounds and styles that she now calls her own. Fur and Gold in comparison is all gothic gloom, crawling tempo and sparse arrangement where the lack of elements is as much of an instrument as the steady simple beats, strings, the occasional bass and Khan's keyboards are. Which isn't a bad formula to build songs upon and many of the cuts here - the hypnotic "Trophy", seductively sleazy "The Wizard", the Nick Cave -esque "Sarah", the quiet "Sad Eyes" - do well with it. It simply gets very similar very soon when there's little variety involved, which is all the more apparent towards the backside of the album when Khan has started to exhaust her bag of tricks, and what initially impressed now already seems rote. "Bat's Mouth" and "Seal Jubilee" already run on fumes, and the closing "I Saw a Light" is practically exhausting with its six-and-half minute duration and ends the album with by committing the cardinal sin of being boring. Khan has laid out a solid foundation for herself but the relative lack of range gets a little monotonous, and sonical shake-ups like "What's a Girl to Do" and the surprisingly bright-eyed and airy "Prescilla" that liven things up just by way of offering something different are few and far between.

Khan herself is incredibly compelling as a storyteller for these surreal dream-like scenarios she sets out in her songs and she's by far the stand-out aspect of Fur and Gold. Even when the music threatens to turn into a bog you have to wade through and the lyrics veer a little too close into particularly vivid teen diary poetry, she's front and centre with her charisma pulling everything together into a functionable whole. Without her in lead this'd be half the album it is now because as far as the material itself goes, apart from the handful of highlights Fur and Gold sticks a lot less than it gives the impression of. Still, it's not an album I can badmouth even as the years have dimmed its shine. Khan's simply written better, more consistent records further on in her career and by assessing her journey (so far) as a whole, I guess I've finally come to realise that I only ever did listen to this album on the strength of a few select songs while the rest acted as enjoyable enough padding in-between. It's a compelling sound with much promise, but promise turns out to be the key word after all.

Rating: 6/10

CMX - Discopolis (1996)

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.

Rating: 7/10

Magenta Skycode - Relief (2010)

 
1) The Simple Pleasures; 2) Kipling; 3) Night Falls on the Rifle; 4) Sometimes; 5) King of Abstract Painters; 6) Trains Are Leaving the Yard; 7) The Old World; 8) Escaping Outdoors; 9) Montag; 10) We're Going to Climb / Kipling (Reprise)

Moving onto lighter and airier fields from the debut, still scaling grand heights and brimming with melody but more at peace - and more resonant.

Key tracks: "The Simple Pleasures", "Kipling", "Night Falls on the Rifle"

I finished my review for Magenta Skycode's debut IIIII by explaining its power via a quote from the second album, Relief. The opening song of Relief states that "the simple pleasures are always the deepest" and that was the motto why the debut's pop majesty - the moments of melodic bombast with pitch-perfect production, sweeping choruses and majestic peaks - worked so well even though, if you assess it with cold logic, it's hardly a unique album and Jori Sjöroos' flimsy front of a band had the personality of a well equipped studio. Sometimes all you need is just a song that slaps without any greater emotional resonance. The irony of using that quote from Relief is that as far as the two albums go, Relief is the one which actually goes beyond that.

The basic recipe is still as formerly described but in comparison to the stylishly moody IIIII, the blinds have been pulled back and the windows have been opened. The palette for Relief is brighter and airier, and the songs sound more open and positively glow, welcoming the listener in rather than suavely hiding in the dark club corners like the predecessor did. It's an album perfect for the spring: the soundtrack for the world moving on from the dark of winter and the snow melting under the sunshine to reveal patches of green grass coming to life, air filled with a crisp freshness. It's also much less of a 'band' album and it quietly drops the whole rock band pretense of the debut. Sjöroos has a couple of helping hands here (including his PMMP compatriots Paula Vesala and Mira Luoti in blink-and-miss backing vocal roles) but ultimately Relief has the air and aura of a classic multi-talented singer/songwriter/producer's album, where each song is given anything that suits the vibe its creator is trying to pin down and where recreating anything in a live setting is a completely secondary concept. By also moving away from the whole "ordinary band plays stadium songs" shtick, Sjöroos opens up Magenta Skycode's sound to less rigid structures, with sections where there's sometimes little distinction between a build-up and a verse and in fact where entire songs can almost act as dramatic payoffs to prior ones. The Chorus is still the center that everything else seeks towards in order to reach that perfect torchlight waving moment - and Relief has a ton of instantly great moments like that - but how the songs get there now is a different matter. It's probably my highly seasonal associations with this album but the one adjective that always comes to my mind is "natural", as in of nature - the songs play out like a wild growth of instruments and arrangements, in the center of which is a path to the lofty destination.

The new approach unlocks what kept IIIII away from reaching that next, more personal level that was readily in its sights but still beyond its grasp. Relief overall sounds more personal and, well, less like a stylistic experiment of a project and more like a vessel for human expression. Sjöroos' voice is less buried in the mix this time and while he's not necessarily the world's greatest lyricist or a singer, he's so much more confident here than he's ever been before and he soars through Relief with confidence and boldness without hiding himself with production techniques, which adds another layer to the album's overall earnestness and openness. It sounds beautifully at peace and overflowing with personal richness, expressed through these giant arches of melodies and multi-layered arrangements - and for once, Sjöroos' own voice clearly in the middle. It'd be hard to call him anything but a creator without limits (given his multi-project discography) but Relief feels personal and the title feels apt for it, as the weights fall off the shoulder.

As far as the actual songs go, the heavy hitters come up right at the start as Relief doesn't hesitate to start high. "The Simple Pleasures" (quoted earlier) is the big pop song to nail down the album's epic scales right from the beginning and it just gets bigger and bigger with each go-around to more and more majestic results, "Kipling" details the record's more free-flowing creativity with its mantra-like verses (if it's appropriate to call them that) and the sprawling jungle of melodies that wraps around the central shuffling beat that rides the song into the grand horizon, and "Night Falls on the Rifle" adds a touch of darkness from the debut to contrast against the rest of the album's light, eventually revealing its full colours in its harmony-laden chorus that deserves all the repeating it gets. From the opening salvo Relief moves onto a more understated middle section, but letting things calm down a little brings out some of the best qualities of Relief the clearest. The opening trio might be the best songs of the record, but in particular the flow from "King of Abstract Painters" to "Escaping Outdoors" is where all those nature analogies shine the brightest (sometimes literally, "Escaping Outdoors" and all), with an everpresent lush flurry of melodies and extended atmospheric build-ups really invoking that spring morning atmosphere of stepping out into what feels like a new world. They're slightly subtler songs than the big anthem threesome that opens the record, but the melodies are among the album's - and Magenta Skycode's - loveliest and they're honestly the kind of songs you want to wrap yourself into. 

They also resonate, and that's the big thing. IIIII I enjoyed because it's full of bangers (simple as), but Relief actually works its way to me on an emotional level, all to do with those abstract seasonal sensory memories it has despite it actually making little sense (the album was released in October, I got a copy of it in December and my actual memories of it revolve around my time in university in the UK where you just get a weird weather mush that largely blurs together for 12 months instead of clear seasons that would generate seasonal vibes). Even "Montag", the one somewhat ill-fitting song here thanks to its atypically lurching tempo and its melodramatic gothic agony that's at odds with the rest of the album's mood board (from which the grand come-together finale "We're Going to Climb" launches off gloriously), has warmed up to me over the years because it's reached that point where it evokes some actual memories of my university campus that I cherish in my nostalgic rabbit's hole. Thanks to the new approach to songwriting and presentation, the same qualities that won over on IIIII are now able to turn these songs into scenes made out of audio that you can see yourself stepping into, and that vividly atmospheric touch edges it over into a great album. It's a shame that tis where Sjöroos decided to park the project apart from one last EP a few years later: on Relief Magenta Skycode started to turn from one project among others into an artistic vehicle with its own personality, and it would've been interesting to hear where he'd take it from here. 

Rating: 8/10

CMX - Rautakantele (1995)

1) Rautakantele; 2) Yöllisiä; 3) Palvonnan eleitä; 4) Talviunia; 5) Kirosäkeet; 6) Ennustaja; 7) Päivälintu; 8) G; 9) Pelasta maailma; 10) Linnunhammas; 11) Veden ääri; 12) Pirunmaitoa; 13) Hiljaisuuteen

Beautiful songs pushing through a production that tries to stifle them.

Key tracks: "Kirosäkeet", "G," Pelasta maailma"

Aura was a big deal and so a good amount of pressure was always going to be involved when it came time to follow it up, and from the outset Rautakantele looked to be destined to fail. The motivation difficulties that would lead then-drummer Pekka Kanniainen to become an ex-drummer in a few years time became more apparent as Kanniainen struggled to attend writing or practice sessions. Disagreements about the production of the album gave the band the idea to self-produce the record, which didn't go quite according to plan and the band's regret about how the album sounds would become the first thing they’d ever mention when discussing the record. Given the studio time had been booked and the band had plenty of songs in bank they started the recording sessions without their drummer, which meant that most of the material that was recorded leaned towards the softer side of CMX's spectrum - so much so that towards the end of the sessions there were so many doubts within the group about how the album so far had turned out that they quickly recorded a number of songs more in vein with what you'd expect from CMX.

Somehow, through all that, Rautakantele survived. The touch of tenderness and the open embrace of something more graceful that Aura introduced to CMX's sound is followed upon and even emphasised on Rautakantele, through the abysmal production job. The drums are so anemic it makes you wonder if it was a direct snapback to the issues the rest of CMX had with Kanniainen (“Palvonnan eleitä" alone has probably the worst hi-hat sound I’ve ever heard in an actual studio release), the guitars are completely depthless be it acoustic or electric, and everything else is simply so flat this may as well be a 2D release. But the songs bloom through the concrete, and the skeletal sound and the frequent more raw outbursts of volume turn Rautakantele into an album that's both beautiful and ugly at the same time. The troubles that lead to the album are reflected within its tones, with a sense of melancholy and discord across it but through it all, there's a bright warmth that pulls through against the odds reflected in its nonetheless rich arrangements, filled with more playful guitar parts, adventurous vocal lines and a frequently appearing three-piece backing vocalist set whose soft cadence smoothen Yrjänä’s gravel and always become the best part of any song they appear in. Rautakantele like a barren country field in the middle of winter: stark and lifeless, but still picturesque with all the snow over it. 

Much of the album is made out rock songs with serene hearts, where underneath the scarred guitars there's an abundance of strong melodies, and it's at this intersection of heavy and tender where Rautakantele is most often at its best. It’s where you find the anthemic "Kirosäkeet", vulnerable power-ballad-in-making "Talviunia", "Ennustaja" which is awash with playful vocal melodies that beam through and the simply sublime "G" that escalates into a flurry of backing vocal harmonies over one of the band's most - almost spiritually - heavenly choruses. The more traditionally CMX-esque bursts of manic energy like the rhythm-flailing title track and the entertainingly twisted “Palvonnan eleitä” (that speak-song second verse!) support their gentler counterparts and lend the album a surprisingly rapid pace - and even they have a melodic flourish that gives them an airier footing. It all feels - for the first time with CMX - light as air, with none of the pressure behind the scenes detectable; anything but really, as the band has never sounded this effortlessly great.

It is the slow and hymnal heart of Rautakantele that’s become synonymous with the album though, with an intimate touch rare for a CMX album. It's that side which also offers "Pelasta maailma" which became one of CMX's great evergreens shortly after its appearance, and little wonder why. It's a startling song, really, because it's so honest with its romance and peace. No hidden tricks, no cheeky twists: simply a ballad the size of a small personal universe, colouring the night sky with the northern lights in tune with its wistful woodwinds, heartbeat of a drum machine and a genuinely touching vocal performance from Yrjänä and the backing vocalists. "Päivälintu" and "Veden ääri" are more traditional acoustic campfire ballads and are more unarmed than anything the band has recorded before, and "Yöllisiä" even proves that it's possible to mix CMX's erratic whimsy into these new ideas as it topsy-turvies around its strums like a court jester - and then suddenly clearing the table with a moment of quietly touching resonance as the backing vocals begin to gather behind. You even get a literal hymn, “Hiljaisuuteen”, to close the album: a choir piece that has all the holy heavy-heartedness of an actual church song, Yrjänä backed by a multi-head chorus all a cappella who bid a hallow farewell to the album which strikes straight into the heart for this little atheist who grew up in a habitually Christian country. The transition from "Pirunmaitoa" - angry and growling at start but moving into a calmer extended instrumental jam in the way the band enjoyed tiding their albums to the close at the time - isn't perfect, but I'm not sure what exactly could lead flawlessly into "Hiljaisuuteen" either, and as an actual ending it feels just perfect. I don't think I'd ever be able to rank it among my favourite CMX songs as a song, but it's up there with my favourite album closers of theirs, haunting the space long after its brought the disc into its silent end.

“Hiljaisuuteen” is by no means representative of Rautakantele but despite the initial surprise it makes perfect sense for it to exist here. There’s strands of serenity, intimacy and almost spiritual calm throughout the album and after those strands have spent the album wading between rowdy guitars, gentle embraces of melody and a rudimentary production that threatens to strangle the life out of them, a hymn is a natural place for them to gather together. In its own way it makes sense that the band would retreat into a clearer headspace when all four walls around them kept crashing down, and the first thing that comes to my mind from Rautakantele is just how clearly it’s guided by vision, allowing itself to sound so uninhibitedly pretty even if it means shaking away the edge the band had carried - and will go on to carry - with them; to the extent that no matter how long the discography has grown it still remains unique in that extent. The strength of the songwriting and the weakness of the production makes it a strong but wounded album, clearly imperfect but its strengths glow so strongly they sweep away the shadows. If it sounded better maybe it would be an all-time great - and yet in a way its that crippled grace that the record bears which makes it so alluring.

Rating: 8/10

CMX - Aura (1994)

1) Mikään ei vie sitä pois; 2) Sametinpehmeä; 3) Elokuun kruunu; 4) Ruoste; 5) Nainen tanssii tangoa; 6) Turkoosi; 7) Kultanaamio; 8) Raskas; 9) Talvipäivänseisaus; 10) Työt ja päivät; 11) Pilvien kuningas; 12) Aura

More focused and unafraid to be beautiful at times - practically a reinvention for the band, and it's now time to take them seriously.

Key tracks: "Elokuun kruunu", "Ruoste", "Kultanaamio"

I've sometimes seen Aura described as the Finnish OK Computer and while that's a slightly hyperbolic sentiment and the two albums have very little in common musically, there is a seed of truth in there as they do both represent a turn of the tide in the popular pop culture context. Much like Radiohead's epic third album signalled the shift from the bright-eyed optimism of Britpop to the anxiety-exhausted final years of the 1990s in the UK, Aura has become the representative of the shift in Finnish rock music, with the general audiences well and truly adopting the nearly endless wealth of weird rock bands that the late 80s-early 90s Finland was giving birth to. In the wider scheme Aura didn't start the revolution, but it became its face, representing the upgrade from cult success ti actual success for CMX and many of their peers, as all these lyrically adept and musically unique acts who had been bubbling underneath became unlikely radio stars and shaped the Finnish nineties in their own characteristic ways.

The wildest thing about Aura is where it came from. Keep in mind that up to this point CMX were a chaotic group of grizzly Northern men who were always restlessly stirring their own pot, intentionally awkward to adore. They were prog-rockers doing hardcore punk, a band who found it hilarious and thrilling to pervert their hooks with abrupt twists and whose albums ran amok. After a string of three erratic albums each one more unpredictable than before (and not necessarily always in the best way), they were incredibly unlikely heroes to ever get a real break - if they ever even wanted it. CMX were a band in a constant flux, a maelstrom of wild ideas and wilder energy. But they were also talented, ambitious musicians who were growing out of the playpen they had started in and though they had tried to fight change in Aurinko, eventually it became too tempting to resist.

Aura is where CMX took a deep breath and focused. If you want to keep drawing parallels to OK Computer, then Aura bears the same notion of the band putting their heads together to plan for something greater than the sum of its parts, something that would take them to the next level artistically and musically. In Aura's case, that move was allowing ideas to represent themselves calmly and slowly if needed. The old fire hasn’t disappeared: "Sametinpehmeä" is perhaps a bit too much of a throwback to the last two albums that's a little ill-fitting in its current company and only seems to be on the album to remind any old fans right from the start that yes it's still the same CMX, but "Raskas" is just as positively punchy as anything before and the delightfully bonkers tango/heavy metal hybrid "Nainen tanssii tangoa" is fueled by the flashes of complete insanity that was the main characteristic of early CMX. Even the shaman drum jams that were synonymous with the band are still intact as far as actually opening the album, but "Mikään ei vie sitä pois" immediately highlights the changes in the band's songwriting. Unlike all the other previous drum circle anthems it's guided by melody, and rather than just standing out as a weird novelty, it makes not just for an effective intro but stands out as a song in its own right, mystically leading into Aura's world. 

Those familiar throwbacks are largely there to bridge gaps though, and for most of its duration Aura looks both forward and elsewhere entirely. It is a gentler and softer record than the first three, undeniably; but it’s also more expansive and cohesive, and quite frankly more thought-out. Many of the songs are built around acoustic guitars and four tracks - a quarter of the album - are effectively ballads or mood pieces with A.W. Yrjänä's voice in the forefront in a manner it hasn't been before; among them are the elegant and softly spoken “Ruoste” that became the album’s runaway hit and the deceptively beautiful and secretly tragic “Talvipäivänkumous” that's like a light in the middle of the coldest winter night. At the center of it it's CMX embracing the concept that you can create something beautiful with a honest heart, and it opens so many paths for the band across even the harder songs. Arrangements are expanded with more keyboards and most notably a set of strings, which land a central role in every song they turn up in thanks to some sublime string arrangements that are overy and beyond the generic rock band orchestral wallpaper. The band’s prog influences are rising right to the surface as well, with the Pink Floydian “Pilvien kuningas” resting in its keyboard-trodden groove for a good nine minutes as the band lose themselves in the kind of instrumental jamming that they’d shy away from previously. “Elokuun kruunu” and “Kultanaamio” complete the band’s transformation into 90s alternative stars: they're two towering guitar anthems that sound as majestic on the hundredth listen as they do on the first, boldly soaring. "Elokuun kruunu" is fantastic in its own right, showing a little restraint even as it goes for the jugular in its anthemic chorus, but "Kultanaamio" is the album's centrepiece - you can predict right from the simple bass intro that the song is eventually going to explode and when it does, with the string section swooping in from the shadows like a gust of wind that just gave the song's wings flight, it's truly incredible. It's CMX well and truly reincarnated, unafraid to be a little more open towards its listeners but backing that notion up with a melodic abundance that begs to be heard.

As a first for CMX, it's also a set of songs that hold together remarkably. Aura is an album, a statement of intent for CMX's brand new form. It’s exciting in its cohesiveness, how dramatic arcs are built and sustained through several songs, where everything builds up on what appeared before. “Mikään ei vie sitä pois” and “Sametinpehmeä” bridge the gap from the past to the present, “Elokuun kruunu” reveals the band’s new more elegant side, “Ruoste” digs deeper into that and introduces the strings, “Nainen tanssii tangoa” incorporates those strings in something more conventional for the band, et cetera. They're also, for the most, part great songs. There's a few that truly make a stand - "Elokuun kruunu", "Kultanaamio", "Ruoste", "Talvipäivänseisaus" - but the overall flow is not only cohesive, but consistent. There was a lot of potential as well as flashes of greatness across the past three albums, but it's like it finally clicked for the band themselves what exactly those moments were, and they've removed the chaff around them. There's grace, there's fury and there's a constant sense of surprise and excitement, and it's not easy to understand why this album in particular lifted CMX on a pedestal. For me personally Aura is a few small steps away from being a truly classic album, but it is still undeniable in so many ways.

Rating: 8/10

Lambchop - How I Quit Smoking (1995)

1) For Which We Are Truly Thankful; 2) The Man Who Loved Beer; 3) The Militant; 4) We Never Argue; 5) Life's Little Tragedy; 6) Suzieju; 7) All Smiles and Mariachi; 8) The Scary Caroler; 9) Smuckers; 10) The Militant (Reprise); 11) Garf; 12) Your Life as a Sequel; 13) Theöne; 14) Again

This is where Lambchop set their form, and if you're familiar with that form you'll already know exactly what to expect. In good and bad.

Key tracks: "We Never Argue", "Suzieju", "Theöne"

The Lambchop formula, if you will, finds its footing here. Their first album saw Kurt Wagner and his gang with one foot in alt country and one foot in slacker-esque alt rock, and now the weight's started to shift towards the former. "Americana" is arguably a better descriptor than country through: Lambchop doesn't really have the twang of a country act, but the sweeping strings, smooth orchestration and quiet acoustic murmurs all have their roots in the vintage American songbook, which Wagner interprets through his own peculiar personality traits. Lambchop albums differ by tiny factors usually detectable only by seasoned veterans of the band's music, and on How I Quit Smoking that factor is the mere act that it lays down the tracks for the next two decades. The influence of the first album is still deep in the album's psyche, though. You know how on early 90s alternative rock or indie rock albums you've got that one much slower song - sometimes with strings - that isn't really a ballad but more of an introspective moment of calm that's there to balance the album's flow? Imagine an entire album of those back to back, just remove the excess rock artistry from the equation (I can’t imagine this was a particularly exciting time to be a drummer for Lambchop, for example).

In general though, if you know Lambchop you know how this goes. Wagner mutters surrealist everyday vignettes (which often elicit a genuine chuckle), the tempo barely ever goes beyond calmly trodding ("All Smiles and Mariachi" is the only uptempo number here and I use that term extremely loosely) and overall it all goes on for a little too long while sounding a little too similar throughout, but it's nonetheless all very pleasant to listen to. How I Quit Smoking isn’t really about the power of songcraft or individual set pieces, it’s one long sustained mood where barely anything happens unless you view it through a microscope. At their most Lambchoppiest the band's music can get downright samey, and How I Quit Smoking is what you'd point towards as a solid example of that. It sets the band's norms but because of that, it also doesn't tinker around with them like some of the later albums do and so it is particularly one-note. Its charms are practically passive, the songs more of a mindset and a moodscape that present themselves without causing a stir - but if you're in a Lambchop mood it works wonder. That near-perfect collaboration between mood and music is likely why there are so many people who like this band, including me - sometimes there's no other music that would work better than Wagner's quiet grace. 

Nonetheless, to give How I Quit Smoking some credit of its own there are a few particular pieces of excellence that do stand out. "We Never Argue", "Life's Little Tragedy" and "Suzieju" forms the album's charmingly swooning core, full to their brim with the kind of elegance that would become more familiar across some albums down the line. "We Never Argue" also presents the album's catchiest vocal melody and the flute hook of "Suzieju" is the musical equivalent, so they're the bops of the record if you will, if that makes a difference. "Theöne" is a superlatively beautiful string-laden number which ends the record with an honestly touching way, with "Again" serving as its quick all-strings reprise to officially close things down. Those aren't the only parts of the album that jump out, but they're the notable ones in a sea of gentle guitar melodies, Wagner's murmur and barely-there percussion hits from one song to another, some of which are nicer than others. The only real point of criticism is that "The Militant" doesn't need to appear twice, because even if the "reprise" version has a different tone to the first version and so arguably justifies its existence, it's still the same song and bloats a tracklist that already feels like a dragging Sunday afternoon at times.

Otherwise though, unless you're insistent on listening to things chronologically (or you feel particularly inspired by this review to listen to this out of the blue, in which case, why?) by the time you get to this album you know the drill, and you'll likely have accepted it already. Lambchop have done better albums - many genuinely great - and then they've done albums like How I Quit Smoking that offer exactly what you expect and which works exactly how you'd like it to. Regardless of whether it's actually a truly memorable album is almost a moot point - it's comfortably Wagnerian at its most base form.

Rating: 6/10

Various Artists - Smash 11 (1992)

1) Erasure - S.O.S.; 2) Was (Not Was) - Shake Your Head; 3) Dr. Alban - It's My Life; 4) Shakespear's Sister - I Don't Care; 5) Elton John - The One; 6) Felix - Don't You Want Me; 7) Kim Wilde - Who Do You Think You Are?; 8) Chyp-Notic - Still in Love with You; 9) Take That - I Found Heaven; 10) U96 - Das Boot; 11) Ringo Starr - Weight of the World; 12) Indra - Misery; 13) Del Amitri - Always the Last to Know; 14) Glenn Frey - I've Got Mine; 15) Blue System - I Will Survive

One from the personal archives, a childhood favourite compilation from the years before the music nerd instincts truly kicked in. Erratic at places but some of this music is timelessly great.

Key tracks: Erasure - "S.O.S.", Was (Not Was) - "Shake Your Head", Indra - "Misery"

I grew up on V/A hit compilations before I started getting into music on a more artist-focused basis, and prior to the start of my own collection of more contemporary collections I would borrow my sister's old CDs that she had left lying around. I didn't really know anything about any of the artists or 90% of the songs on Smash 11 when I first heard it, but this was one of my most played albums when I was much, much younger.

I was also a lot more skip-happy as a child than I am now and in fact, the pre-pubescent version of myself has kindly marked the tracks officially decreed as worthy of listening in the liner notes with a ballpoint pen. There's not too many of them, and revisiting this collection a decades later it becomes clear why, i.e. because this is a rather random selection of songs. The bulk of the tracklist is very heavily based on early 1990s dance and pop - lots of classic looped beats, gorgeous house pianos, nascent eurodance synths - but then there's also a sappy Elton John MOR ballad? Del Amitri's cowboy rocking? Kim Wilde kicking it like it's still the 1980s (shocked to find out "Who Do You Think You Are" was in fact released in 1992)? Ringo freaking Starr!? Smash 11 takes a direction and then throws in wild curveballs when you least expect it. Even some of the songs more in line with the general theme stand out, with choices like U96's techno remix of the Das Boot theme (apparently a top 10 hit in Finland and a massive German smash?) or songs like Indra's "Misery" or Blue System's  "I Will Survive" (not the cover you'd expect) which I don't think ever were actual hits. This feels more like someone's personal mixtape rather than a various artists compilation of chart-toppers that I'd expect to see in store shelves, though for what it's worth I have no idea what the actual lineage or concept behind the Smash series is - the cover says "familiar from TV" but I've no idea what the program was?

Whatever the idea behind this was it's full of classics big and small, and I'm happy to say that the past version of myself already had a great taste because of each of those marked tracks are still top tier. "It's My Life" and "Baby Got Back" are of course iconic and evergreen, the former one of the finest anthems of eurodance and the latter a true refuge in audacity that wins over by embracing its own over-the-top horniness. Of the lesser known cuts, Shakespear's Sister's rollicking "I Don't Care" comes with that excellent early 90s rock energy and has a real unique flair to it with its ethereal high pitch vocal hooks, a bizarre spoken word interlude and some fantastically corny MIDI horns. The "Das Boot" techno remix is also a hoot - sometimes a way to make a famous film theme even better is to run it through a 1990s club filter and marvel at how perfectly the melody works within a dark, claustrophobic groove full of orchestral hits and robotic vocals. The most significant unearthing of the old favourites is Indra's "Misery", a song I had no recollection of but which reveals itself to be a stellar early 90s dance pop jam full of rad attitude and neon colour cool. It doesn't look like it was ever anything more than a minor regional hit, but it's one of those songs I wish would have a stronger legacy or a bigger name attached to it, because it's got such a good groove to it. As I said, I clearly already knew what's good when I was young.

There are two very big personal favourites though, right there at the start. Erasure's version of ABBA's "S.O.S." was the first version I heard of the song and to me it's the definitive one, with no disrespect to the original creators. The cold and dreamy synth pop production and Andy Bell's emotionally distant vocals work so flawlessly with that killer melody and the lyrical tone, to the extent that the warmth in the original version now sounds jarring to my ears. This is my "S.O.S.", and it's one of the finest synth pop songs of the 1990s. The "Walk the Dinosaur"-hitmaker Was (Not Was)' "Shake Your Head" on the other hand is a fever dream which I can't believe exists but I'm sure glad it does. Kim Basinger and Ozzy Osbourne trade non-sequiturs with increasing surreality, somehow escalating into "let's go to bed", under a near seven-minute dance production (thanks to the extended mix featured here) with an off-kilter vocal loop hook. It's mad but very specifically it's mad genius - it's one of the most off-kilter chart cuts of the 1990s through its star power alone. I already respect how off the rails it is, but it's just a killer in general, a gem of a pop song with the most infectious hooks in the entire collection.

Beyond the classic favourites, this is definitely a mixed bag but maybe not in the way you'd expect. This is a really solid collection of both classics and lesser known examples of early-mid 1990s pop/dance sound, if you are into that at all - which I absolutely am, even without the nostalgia filter - and e.g. the tracks in the middle from the likes of Felix, Chyp-Notic et all work excellently as part of that stylistic suite. It just also comes with a caveat because of its more awkward side tracts. Not all the non-dance cuts are by no means bad (I've already attested my love for "I Don't Care" and the Kim Wilde cut also slaps) but like all hits compilations it could do without anything close to a ballad (hi Elton), and the classic rock dinosaurs certainly don't have a place here (again, hi Elton here too). The album also starts running out of steam towards the final third when it starts pouring the MOR superstars from Ringo to Del Amitri to Glenn Frey's poor man's "Another Day in Paradise", with only Indra there in the middle to save the day and Blue System's euphoric "Go West" -esque "I Will Survive" closing the record off with a bang; though as a mea culpa I don't actually think they are bad tracks per se, I appreciate their warmly dated vibe to some extent, but they're in the wrong company. I also have this irrational aversion towards Take That that I've never been able to cure myself of, and so they still go on the skip pile. Some of the strays aside though, a good amount of this set is simply excellent pop music that time has gilded. I'm not going to say this random chart compilation is a lost classic, but it's a footnote in my own musical history and so it comes with a lot of personal weight. That said, the best rediscovery ever since I brought this album back in my collection is that solid gold jams are timeless regardless of any nostalgia.

Rating: 7/10

CMX - Aurinko (1992)

1) Pyhiinvaeltaja; 2) Härjät); 3) Aivosähköä; 4) Katariinanpyörä; 5) Todellisuuksien ylhäiset luokat; 6) Tähteinvälinen; 7) Manalainen; 8) Ainomieli; 9) Kaksi jokea; 10) Timanttirumpu; 11) Marian ilmestys; 12) Yö ei ole pimeä päivä

A lot of vigour and noise, but they're at the crossroads and uncertain where to go.

Key tracks: "Manalainen", "Ainomieli", "Marian ilmestys"

Aurinko was CMX's first album on a major label, and it has the overwhelming feeling of the band doing their darnest to convince their existing fans that they've not sold out. Or, at least that's how its downright stubborn attitude comes across for me. Its more energized moments are full of spit and brawn like the band's earliest recordings and its experimental side is drawn out to extremes to test the audience's patience, all in service of an uncompromising major label debut: a case of a band sticking it to temptations and label suggestions upon receipt of creative freedom for their big audience debut.

That's not necessarily good, or at least Aurinko is a surprisingly lackluster album after the interesting twists and turns the preceding Veljeskunta and its follow-up EP suggested. Aurinko tries to have its cake and eat it: it's absolutely a more self-assured record in its presentation than either of its predecessors and the band's vast range of influences is starting to creep through more clearly, but despite that Aurinko still sounds like a step backwards. It's a record that makes a lot of noise but wields it aimlessly, sounding feisty and raucous but trampling its song material underneath, and the first half makes it abundantly clear. Bar the calmer "Katariinanpyörä" which strums along with Veljeskunta-esque goth cool, the initial run of songs are more or less the same cranky rock gremlin repeated over and over again, barely distinguishing themselves from one another. There's an effort to sharpen the band's dynamic but the single-minded storming ahead is underwritten each time and despite their punk-meets-alternative volume, very few of these songs are any interesting or exciting at all. The only one that sticks with me is "Aivosähköä" because of its admittedly quite hilarious full stop in the middle of a chorus before a sudden breakdown occurs, but the rest is a series of copy/paste songs that sound desperate to prove CMX are still CMX, even under EMI. Problem is, it was more engaging the last time around.

Aurinko is an album with clear two distinct halves though and bar "Kaksi jokea" that's like a straggler epilogue to the first five songs, the second half is where CMX start branching out their ideas. It brings some life to the record and paves the way forward, but the issue is, I still don't think it makes for a particularly great set of songs. Many of the songs on the second half are either underbaked or they pick a shtick and stretch it until it's thin. That's we get the completely atonal and unbearable shaman drum jam "Timanttirumpu" (the worst of early CMX's many folklore drum circle bangers) and "Tähteinvälinen" which on paper sounds great - a beautiful interstellar declaration of love driven by organ and woodwind - but instead drones on and on, like it was threatening to be something too soft and just had to be dirtied up. The most interesting parts are the ones that clearly hint towards the next album, by way of the angry "Manalainen" that does what the first album tried to do but pulls it off and throws a surprising and impressively oppressing string section underneath itself, and the prog rock mood piece "Marian ilmestys" and its chopped off outro "Yö ei ole pimeä päivä" though you'd hear better versions of both songs in the near future. Unlike the first half of Aurinko the second half is actually memorable; they're still songs that all come with a 'but' attached to them when you describe them, but it's where CMX start brushing off the past and get ready for something unexpected and new, and that counts for something.

And then there's "Ainomieli", a genuinely excellent alternative radio pop gem, sitting in the middle of this mess. "Ainomieli" is the antithesis to everything else on Aurinko - self-composed, polished, welcoming and honestly a ton of fun - and that's why it's beaming with more confidence and boldness than anything else on the record. It's the exact kind of thing that CMX try to avoid for the rest of the album - it's the kind of radio-ready hit single that the band proactively reacted against by never making it one despite label pleads - but you can hear how much more focused and passionate they are about it compared to anything else around it. Its riotously jolly rapid fire chorus is one of CMX's key iconic moments and the rest of the song builds up around that centerpiece section with clarity and an understanding of melody which prior to this the band had often obscured under their raw approach. "Ainomieli" is a classic and singlehandedly rescues Aurinko: it's the song you want to return to, the song that keeps you going and the song that invites you to give a second chance to everything else around it.

I've given plenty of those second chances to Aurinko and over time it's warmed up to me slightly to the extent that I feel self-conscious when I'm harsh about it, but it is so obviously CMX in growing pains. If they had actually made an abrasive or difficult album to go with that ethos than fair play, but the cardinal sin of Aurinko is that for good parts of its duration it just isn't as interesting as the ruckus it tries to raise makes it out to be. It sees the band take cautious step back while building up the courage to take the leap forward, and I'd rather just listen to the truly wild early days or the confidently forward-thinking albums afterwards instead rather than the awkward in-between years.

Rating: 5/10

Magenta Skycode - IIIII (2006)

1) Hands Burn; 2) People; 3) Compassion; 4) Open Air; 5) Pleasure of Love; 6) I Know You're Sleeping With Your Dolls; 7) Go Outside Again; 8) Luvher Oh Hater; 9) Red Eyes; 10) This Empty Crow

Big songs, big production - enough to create emotional heights from those grand swoons alone.

Key tracks: "People", "Compassion", "Luvher Oh Hater"

Jori Sjöroos is a man of many hats. Since the 1990s he’s been splitting his abundance of time between a vast amount of different names, restlessly starting and ending projects on a whim and in process quietly become one of the most ever-present names in Finnish music while largely keeping himself out of the actual spotlight. He's gone from the doom metal of Thergothon to the trendy and radio-friendly club beats of Fu-Tourist, and from cult success with This Empty Flow to actual critical and commercial success as the invisible third member of PMMP. Sjöroos has stretched his wings far and wide across his career, launching new projects each time he wants to try doing something new but most of the time he’s remained intentionally in the background for each of them, the connections between the albums only clear for those who read liner notes. Magenta Skycode is one of the few times when Sjöroos earnestly became the leading star in one of his CV entries, taking on the role of the frontman of a band though in reality he wrote and recorded everything by himself behind the scenes anyway. Magenta Skycode's relatively short period of existence is in tandem with the rise of PMMP where Sjöroos wrote and produced some of the catchiest and most openly direct music of his career for entirely different front personnel to put their lyrics to, and though different from a genre perspective Magenta Skycode comes across like a way present that more melodic direction he'd been immersed in with his own voice front and center.

The widescreen sound of IIIII has its roots in both 80s goth rock and the bombastic indie of its time period, but its core lies in pop-like instancy of its melodies. With Sjöroos being a producer first and foremost, he coats his melodies in kitchen sink antics and a pristinely perfect, multilayered sound. It’s all unashamedly high and mighty, but it’s guided with a vision - each layer highlights the strengths of the melodies churning in the core of it all and the production makes all those layers apparent. The one thing that Sjöroos does bury is his own vocals, which appear as largely incomprehensible series of syllables following a melody (with no lyrics in the booklet to help decipher them); thus the attention moves completely to the actual sound and the strength of the rest of the songwriting, both of which can withstand the extra scrutiny. IIIII sounds really beautiful, from the light twang of the bass groove to the shimmering guitars and shining keyboards - the band line-up may be a facade but Magenta Skycode do somehow sound like a genuine group of musicians banded together with a real dynamic based on the way the instruments interact (the drums are a constant highlight especially). They're lush and clear, while still having the type of warmth these studio-perfected records sometimes miss.  

The dark-clad visuals of IIIII are a red herring: Magenta Skycode is Sjöroos' vehicle for indulging in any stadium torchlight anthem fantasies he has and so he plays them bright and loud. It's exciting and exhilirating in a way pop music does best, where each regal melodic swoon comes like a moment of victory worth cheering for, where each grabbing chorus is a rollercoast riding the thrilling downhill. It's all really confident in its own skillset, and Sjöroos has got the songs to back that ego up. His creativity was at its peak during this time as evidenced by the music he was writing for PMMP simultaneously, and IIIII comfortably rides that same imperial phase train. “People” and “Compassion” stomp with a rhythm-driven urgency as they throw in new hooks and layer old ones with each go-around, “Open Air” and “Go Outside Again” harmoniously reach out in wide open gestures in accordance with their titles, “Hands Burn” is the kind of a majestic slow-burn opener that would make any major publication’s year-end song list, (the horribly titled) “Luvher Oh Hater” and “Red Eyes” lean fully into the album’s ambitions of grandeur and present real stadium soarers, the former with one of the album’s biggest choruses and the latter with a fantastic instrumental finale with Sjöroos indulging in dramatic guitar solo gestures. Each song on IIII strives to be a capital Moment, even the slightly filler-adjacent vibe check "I Know You're Sleeping With Your Dolls" which brings the album to a moment of quiet before a sequence of multiple epic finales in a row in its back half. The excellent thing is, he manages to pull that off for most of the record.

I do readily admit though that my love for IIIII is purely superficial. The production is beautifully perfect in a strictly hifi-ist way, and that's an approach that works for me by default when it's done this well and the songs themselves have rich melodies for days - strictly as a piece of music, IIIII simply sounds great. The superficiality comes in on how I don't find this a particularly deep record, and that’s largely in part to how the music is constantly fixated on delivering those instant highs while the vocals are pushed to the back, so the intended emotional tone remains a mystery and the songs only speak with the exciting rush of cinematic hooks exploding in the sky. I don't think that's an indictment against Magenta Skycode or IIIII - the second Magenta Skycode album opens up by stating "the simple pleasures are the greatest" and I feel like that's a motto that speaks for the whole project. The songs on IIIII pull towards their exciting dramatic archs with staggering intensity every time the album is on, and that is absolutely more than enough to create a completely captivating record. If you're a fan of maximalist melodies and grand gestures, then IIIII is an easy bet.

Rating: 7/10