Review: Abyssion – Luonnon Harmonia Ja Vihreä Liekki
Jul 19
Abyssion – Luonnon harmonia ja vihreä liekki (Black Metal/Punk/Psych, Svart Records)
Released July 3rd, 2015
Apparently, somewhere in the forests of Finland, a couple of angry and acid-addled hermit-druids recently decided to start up a band and channel their influences, an undoubtedly logical grouping of The Stooges, Amebix, Burzum, and Hawkwind. A pairing of musical muses this broad may seem odd (or awesome, depending on your current state of sobriety), until you consider the fact that black-crust psychonauts Abyssion are comprised of members from fellow metal brain-fuckery outfits Dark Buddha Rising and Oranssi Pazuzu. The result of their collaboration is Luonnon harmonia ja vihreä liekki (Harmony of Nature and the Green Flame, for those of you rusty on your Finnish), a dirty, low-fi, spaced-out amalgamation of punk, black metal, and early 70’s garage psych rock. In other words weird, brutal, and necessary listening for those late nights spent hunting teenagers in the woods.
The opening track, ‘Luonnon Harmonia’, is as good an introduction to the group’s sound as any, since most all of the songs on the album roughly follow the same recipe. That recipe being: a generous helping of grimy-sounding Finnish punk (usually of the lower tempo variety), a good measure of growled Lemmy-esque vocals, and a decent pinch of psychedelia. As mentioned, there is a definite and all-encompassing atmosphere of psychedelia on this record; it saturates every song with spaced-out synths sweeping through the background just under the mix of repeated riffs and hypnotic drums. The other flavors, black metal and crust punk, share split duty on Abyssion’s first release, with certain songs or parts of songs leaning one or the other (‘Kosmoksesta Tuli Hautani’ would fit well on many a second-wave BM record, while a song like ‘Vihreä liekki’ would do nicely on an old Amebix album), though overall the influences are fairly homogenized. Given the pedigree of the musicians involved, which includes groups like Dark Buddha Rising and Oranssi Pazuzu, it’s easy to see how Abyssion came into its sound, given that it resembles what it must sound like to have these guys jam in a smoky garage.
The production is low-fi, but very much in an intentional way; it’s the type of music meant to make and listen to in a haze-filled garage. Generally, in the current age of faux retro music acts, Abyssion’s new album is a rare case of engineering aesthetic matching musical style with a sense of actual authenticity. A clean and polished recording would bleach any character out of music this gritty and dirty, so the basement treatment is more than appropriate.
At the end of the listen (and to be honest, the album deserves several), Luonnon harmonia is a bit of a paradox; the music itself is multidimensional from the sense of styles and influences, but the record on the whole is a bit of a one-way street. Of the many flavors on the offering here, diversity in songcraft is not one of them, though considering music’s the solid foundation of punk it’s hard to really argue against the stripped down and straightforward ethos that goes along with the territory. There are only five tracks on Luonnon Harmonia…, with an average of five minutes for song length, so it certainly doesn’t overstay its welcome and it is because of this that the music, despite the lack of variety, never gets tiresome even after repeat listens. Being an eerily hypnotic brand of music also helps in this regard, as it is all too easy to get lost in the soundscape.
Overall, Abyssion’s trip into the cerebral, well, abyss is a unique and mind bending foray down a rabbit hole, the kind only found in the jam room of a spaced-out Finnish black metal/punk band. It’s gritty, raucous, and weird; perfect for anyone with a taste for odd music at loud volume.
Conclusion: Definitely listen to next time you want to simultaneously space out and headbang.
