Another one of those Best of 2013 things

 Even though Common Era Earth has just turned 2014 years old, I felt that there was still room for one more Best of 2013 list. I think the contents of this list are a bit under appreciated when it comes to metal. I'm talking about music videos. I find that a lot of metal music videos are the band performing while some random shots are thrown in of either band members “acting”, or random people acting, whilst attempting to make a connection to the song. I know that music videos are no longer very relevant since most music television channels no longer focus on music, and even less relevant to metal music because those bands don't get much airplay on music television anyway, but I've always appreciated a well executed music video. While these days it seems that it is a lot easier for bands to release lyric videos, there are some bands that have made music videos an art form rather than just a mishmash of performing and so called acting. This is just a few bands I thought deserve a pat on the back and a snuggle for being able to execute superb music videos in 2013.

1) Outlaw by Watain from The Wild Hunt

The video for Outlaw must have been a stressful one for everyone involved with Watain. The band has been together for about fifteen years and never released a music video, unless you count their DVD, Opus Diaboli, which I don't, so there must have been immense pressure for Outlaw to be above and beyond. Outlaw has got to be my favourite track from The Wild Hunt because of the tribal and animalistic nature that seems to leap from the speakers and drag you back to it's lair. The music video managed to embody all that wildness fantastically. I love the ”vintage” asthetic of it, which may be interpreted as trying to stay trve by having it be shit quality. They were successfully able to piece together vingettes of all kinds of footage like insane asylum patients, animals parts, other blood and gore, nuns doing drugs, a lady who looks like she is committing suicide by sticking her head in an oven, and a band performance. And to add to the interesting vignettes, the fast pace of the song was matched by the transitions of the vingettes and was able to keep my interest. They even managed to make the band performance interesting by keeping it pretty primal. I haven't seen Watain live, but Outlaw definitely gives me a taste of what I could expect; fire, dirt, and blood. I really liked how the band was involved in the vignettes without it seeming like it was just an awkward moment of acting; sometimes they were on motorcycles, sometimes they were creepin' on those insane asylum people, sometimes they were being very Crust Punk by tattooing some poor soul in a disease filled room where I would not be surprised to find GG Allin in a corner covered in his own blood and shit. It's creepy, dirty, and wild. It's perfect. 

2) Dead City Radio and the New Gods of Supertown by Rob Zombie from Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor

Dead City Radio is a boot-scootin' booty shakin' kind of song for me and its video makes me love the song even more. I do a bit of an eye roll when bands do videos in black and white because it makes me feel like they are trying to be too artistic, but I think when it comes to Rob Zombie, and this music video, I'll let it slide. This video is incredibly random but it works for the song and the video doesn't try to do anything else but be a performance piece. I could have done without Sheri Moon Zombie being in it because she is to Rob Zombie what Johnny Depp is to Tim Burton, but I didn't hate her performance and she is still pretty badass in it. It's still got that sassy Rob Zombie feel to it; it's fun and groovy and that's all that matters.

3) Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel by Behemoth from The Satanist

Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel is one of those videos that surpasses the song. For me, the song is a tiny bit borning, but the video made up for that and makes me way more excited for Behemoth's return. The video is chalk full of gorgeous imagery and symbolism that I haven't quite absorbed/grasped from just a few viewings and my limited knowledge of such things. It's in black and white as well, and I'll let it slide even more than Dead City Radio because this video is damn artistic, in a way that doesn't try to talk down to its viewer. I think that this video is a great trailer for what we can expect from The Satanist, which will be released in February, and shows how Behemoth is ready to live up to their name.

4) Häxbrygd by Finntroll from Blodsvept

Finntroll delivered some Mad Max-esque trollness with Häxbrygd. It's nice to see a band that would otherwise get pushed into doing yet another video full of folky aesthetics do something totally different, but still keep some of their roots in there, like the addition of some floppy troll ears and keeping their stage makeup. For me, the end of the video where the band finishes pimpin' their ride and proceeds to ride around town is very similar to the video for Dragula by Rob Zombie, but, I dig it. I could do without the addition of the double bass because I think it is really over done in a lot of music videos. However, drummer Beast Dominator's incredibly sassy moment of giving the camera the finger and the addition of a creeptastic scene with Trollhorn playing the hell out of an accordion tips over the scale for this being an awesome video. 

Honourable mention – In the Navy by Alestorm from Live at the End of the World

This is an honourable mention because technically it's labeled officially on Youtube as a teaser for their live DVD/album, Live at the End of the World. From a band that labels itself as ”bacon powered pirate core”, I don't expect any less than them finally covering this musical masterpiece and while I'm not a huge fan of live videos, this one is pretty fun. I like that they've utilized GoPro technology in this because it sort of update to the age old live music video. The ”back stage” footage you see is decent cause it's not just a bunch of musicians off their tits all the time nor is it just about how boring touring can be; they managed to get a good mix of the two with some nice footage of Australia.

I've missed them playing in Toronto everytime, either I wasn't into them or I was not in the country, and them appear to have played in Finland once. But, I know from reliable sources that what you see in this video is basically what you get; lots of drinking, primarily by frontman Christopher Bowes whilst playing the Segway of instruments, the keytar, pirates, and kangaroos. Although, I don't think kangaroos are all that prominent, but they should be. All silliness aside, the video is a great teaser/trailer/whatever you want to call it for Live at the End of the World and if I wasn't a skint student, I'd definitely buy it. 

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lilacviking's favourite albums of 2013!

2013 was an interesting year for metal. There were some great albums and some not so great albums *cough* Turisas2013 *cough*. For me, it was a year of musical second chances; all the bands on this list, with the exception of Watain, are bands I've known about for years but never been properly into. It's nice to actually listen to ”new” bands for once. I love hearing stuff from the bands I already love, but it can be come reptative. When I get into a band I really get into them, and that has happened with all the bands on this list because of the albums they've released this year and I'm quite stoked about it.

1) Blodsvept by Finntroll

True to form, Finntroll delivered another awesome Troll Metal album with Blodsvept. It hammers you from the beginning like the troll attacking Aragorn in The Return of the King, only Blodsvept actually beats you to a pulp. The biggest thing for me when listening to an album is that the songs flow together well; there can't be super abrupt endings followed by long beginnings and vice versa. I like to think of an album as a book, the chapters have got to flow to be able to make sense and allow for a good story and I think that was something Finntroll did very successfully with this album. The cohesion of the album is even more successful because Im sure a lot of their listeners don't speak any Swedish, myself included, so obviously there isn't much that one can get out of the lyrics; the band has to rely on their ability to musically tell the story that is being talked about and I think they did a really good job in accomplishing that with Blodsvept.

As I mentioned earlier, I only seriously started to listen to Finntroll this past year. I've known about them for years and of course knew Trollhammeren, but had never been properly into them until my good friend Caitlin informed me they were playing in Toronto in August and we had to go. Since I hadn't been listening to them much before, most of the songs were new to me and the songs from Blodsvept translated to live performance wonderfully. Seeing them live was also how I discovered my favourite of this album, Mordminnen. It has the dark carnival-esque feeling to it that the rest of the album has, along with the usual trolly-folky Finntroll sound, and it has so much extra energy when it's performed live. I definitely love when I can go to a show and love the songs I've never heard before more than the hit songs, which is definitely something that happened with the songs on this album.

Finntroll is number one of this list because it made me a much bigger fan and I think the band was able to really blend their old stuff with something new; I really enjoy their new take on the music by introducing those steampunk/twisted carnival elements. The biggest reason this album is number one is because it is absolutely stunning when the songs are performed live; these songs, and the old ones they played, made the Finntroll show I went to back in August one of my top five concerts. They really breathed new life into their music with Blodsvept and I cannot wait to see what they do next!

2) Valkyrja by Týr

I think that Týr really hit the nail on the head with this album. Before Valkyrja came out I never paid that much attention to this band. I knew Hold the Heathen Hammer High,and I didn't dislike them, but everything was a bit too Power Metal for me. I'm not sure exactly what it was but I know they didn't do anything for me at the time. Then Valkyrja came out and smacked me in the face for not giving Týr enough credit before! Plain and simple, the album is just tight epicness from start to finish.

Just like with Blodsvept, Valkyrja plays like an album rather than a playlist. This is probably because it is a concept album; in short it is about a Viking warrior leaving his woman to go to battle to win the favour of the godess Freya and he Valkyries so as to get into Valhalla. While the album played really well as a whole, I don't think it was the best of the list in terms of transitions, some of the them are rough and I think the two cover songs on this album are a bit out of place. I think they are great covers, but considering this is a concept album, Cemetery Gates and Where Eagles Dare seem like they were just thrown in there to make thirteen songs; I've listened to the album via Spotify so maybe the covers are not actually included on the regular physical release and therefore what I just said is bullshit? If they aren't included, ignore that last part.

Transitions aside, what stands out about this album and get it on my 2013 list is that the songs aren't typical battle songs. I adore Viking Metal, and which ever other sub-genres you want to add in there, but hearing the same lyric themes like go to battle, slay thine enemy, go home and drink mead then do it all over again, get a bit repetative after awhile. My favourite song, Mare of My Night, is definitly different from the tried and true battle songs that made me not like Týr before. Lyrics aside, Mare of My Night is just sexy sounding. It's got a groove to it that I haven't heard in Týr songs before and definitely something that is missing from Viking metal.

Valkyrja definitely managed to get me to like Týr more and I couldn't be more willing to become a more dedicated listener rather than a casual one. Heri's vocals came off as confidently powerful rather than being obnoxious and cocky and the band sounded tight as fuck thoroughout the entire album. Valkyrja really shows that Týr is growing up and I am more than excited about it.

3) The Wild Hunt by Watain

I've recently started to get more into Black Metal, after a while of being primarily interested in the culture of the genre rather than the music itself. Since Satyricon's album came out in September, I've been delving more into Black Metal. I came across Watain and The Wild Hunt recently while wading through various Black Metal to find some stuff that stuck with me like Satyricon does, and I cannot say enough good things about this album. I haven't noticed if The Wild Hunt is getting flack for ”straying” from the typical Black Metal standards like Satyricon has, but it definitely doesn't follow any of those pre-determined Black Metal ”standards” that have caused me to stay away from the genre in the past. Watain really showed their versitility and ability to grow as musicians with this album. The obvious stand out song is They Rode On because singer Erik Danielsson grants listeners with clean vocals. It seems that ”ballads” are a bit of a trend for the albums on this list, all of the albums except Blodsvept have them. While I like all the ballads from three albums that feature them, I enjoy They Rode On the most. Danielsson's sleep deprived, whiskey soaked clean vocals, combined with Anna Norberg's mournful vocals, and the way the rest of the band are able to slow everything down and mesh typical Goth sounds with Black Metal atmosphere make this song perfect to play on a cold winter's night, but I don't think it's the stand out song on the record. Outlaw, which now has a claim to fame of being the first song to be made into a music video for Watain, was the stand out song for me since I first heard the album. Outlaw is so full of primitive passion that it is very hard to ignore. Outlaw is definitely the definitive song on The Wild Hunt, and I could even go far enough to say that it is the definitive song for Watain. From now on, anytime I'd want to show people this band, I'd make sure they listened to Outlaw first. It is so full of primitive passion and makes me think of Alice falling down the rabbit hole in the 1951 Disney version...except this rabbit hole consists of every demon and general bad thing in the unvierse and Alice is never going to get home again.

Overall, the songs on this record live up to the record title the best out of anything I've heard in a long time; I'm always a little let down when albums don't live up to their title. But The Wild Hunt really managed to pull of a wonderful astmosphere, especially with Outlaw and The Child Must Die , you feel like you are on a sort of wild hunt while listening to this album and I am more than eager to get people to join the ride of insanity.

4) Satyricon by Satyricon

Out of all the albums on this list, I think Satyricon pulled off making an album sound genuinely cohesive rather than a playlist out of all four on this list. Maybe it's because I saw them live recently so Im still in the post concert mode of ”everything they do is wonderful!”, but I've really grown to enjoy Satyricon thanks to this album. Just like with all the other bands on this list, Satyricon is the album that really got me into this band and has made Satyricon my overall band of 2013. I'd known about them for years but being at a different musical stage in my life, I'd never given them a good listen. I think I heard Phoenix when the album had just come out because of everyone talking about it and how it was so far away from black metal that the album shouldn't be ”allowed” to be considered black metal; I don't think people were listening to the rest of the album which has all the trappings of traditional Satyricon with a wonderfully grim atmosphere.

Just like Blodsvept, this album is just awesome live. Voice of Shadows and Natt are both perfect to open and close the album, and I was so pleased that they used the same songs to open and close the concert. All the songs they played from the album, which is quite a few compared to other bands I've seen live, fit perfectly in with the old favourites like K.I.N.G, The Pentagram Burns, and Mother North; the crowd didn't miss a beat even if they didn't recognize a song like Walker upon the Wind straight away.

I've heard frontman Satyr say that The Infinity of Time and Space is the definitive song on this album, and it's a great song, but I think the most Satyricon sounding song on this self titled album is Nekrohaven. Other than the super kvlt name, this song just sums Satyricon up for me; it's melodic and dirty with the catchy riffs that have made Satyricon one of my new favourite bands. Maybe a few people will scratch their head about this choice cause Nekrohaven isn't anything super special, but I really like the simplicity of it.

I know a lot of people haven't liked this album that much because they can't seem to get their heads out of their asses about Phoenix, and I have read a couple reviewers say that it was recorded horribly (I question how well those reviewers know Black Metal if they think Satyricon isn't recorded well). I applaud the band for taking the analog route and I can't wait to be able to hear this album on proper speakers. If you haven't given Satyricon a listen before, definitely check this album out; you won't regret it.

Basically, all the best albums this year, at least the best ones in my opinion, had a few basic similarities. Almost all had ballad type songs (which is strange since I'm not really into ballads), they actually sounded like cohesive albums and not playlists (which is the biggest thing for me), they all had awesome artwork (which was something I didn't discuss but The Wild Hunt and Valkyrja being my favourite cover work), and at least half of them sound great live (this is a bit of a unformed opinion since I haven't seen Týr or Watain play live). Maybe this list comes off as me hopping on the trend, because Watain is getting much more attention since they've signed with Century Media, and both Watain and Satyricon have both made albums that are less traditional Black Metal sounding and therefore less kvlt, but I truly think that all the albums on this list were incredibly well done and will continue to be some of my favourites far into the future.

I may have had four top albums that I could talk about at length, but there are some runners up for best albums of 2013! Which basically just means I really liked these albums but didn't listen to them enough to love them and therefore justify my reasoning for picking them. In no particular order:

Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor by Rob Zombie

Horns and Halos by Michael Monroe

Circle by Amorphis

Bu-Tik by Chthonic. I just saw them open for Satyricon and they are awesome live!

There should be some awesome albums coming next year but these are some I'm looking forward to!

Untitled new Zico Chain album. If you haven't heard this band GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND GO LISTEN

The Satanist by Behemoth

Time II by Wintersun

I haven't posted in awhile because school has been mega busy! I'm spending Christmas in Helsinki with my mum and I'll hopefully bust out some blog posts over holidays. Besides school stuff, I have also been able to update the crap outta my Flickr with photos from the Satyricon concert as well as past photos, and I've created a Deviantart account as well. I also just got a new phone and have Instagram once more! You can follow me there as well as on my Tumblr and my new Twitter account! ALL THE SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS!

"Metal all the time, in every bar"

           Finland is known as being a sort of Mecca for metalheads. Sure, Germany has Wacken, the UK has the ones that started it all, and Norway is kvlt, where else can you go and easily find a bar that plays exclusively rock and metal music? And I don't mean just once a week or the possibility of one song a night. Or, where else can you find a country where most of the population can play at least one musical instrument and and a good few of them have been in a band at some point in their life? Where can you go and hear Nightwish or Sonata Arctica coming from the speakers in the lingerie department of a major department store (a Finnish version of The Bay or Macy's)? While I am not the most traveled person, hailing from Toronto, Canada, having only traveled to a handful of European countries in my short years, I think I'm pretty safe to say that Finland really is a haven for metalheads. That gif of Vreth (Finntroll) saying “in Finland its metal all the time, in every bar” is pretty damn close to the truth.

            I first found out about/fell in love with Finland through listening to music. Yes, I was one of those14 year olds who wanted to marry Ville Valo of HIM; probably one of Finland's best known musical artists. But before you close your browser window in a fit of “she's not metal” rage, let me finish. I was a diehard HIM fan, and still really appreciate their music even though I've stopped listening to only them, and through that band I was able to discover popular Finnish rock bands, some that have reach international fame and some that have only really been popular within Finland. The rock bands here have got a pretty strong fan-base around the world regardless of how small that fan-base is. But because I listened to so much music from Finland, it spurred me on to find out more about this little-known country which seemed similar to my own snowy homeland. As for metal, well I wasn't quite the metalhead back then as I am now; I only listened to a sprinkling of metal amongst my hardcore HIM listening. To be frank, half the vocals drove me nuts because they weren't Valo's baritone; ah, to be a pigheaded teenager. I was determined to go to Finland and I got the chance through my university as an exchange student at the University of Helsinki. In late August of 2011, I became a resident of Helsinki and the real fun began.

            Remember how I said I wasn't that into metal when I was younger compared to now? Well, since I was in Helsinki, basically the centre of the Finnish universe, there was usually at least one concert happening every week somewhere in Helsinki. To put it into perspective, between late 2004 and August 2011, I had been to eight concerts. Between September 2011 and May 2012, the time I lived in Helsinki, minus almost a month that I was back in Canada for Christmas, I went to 38 concerts. Some of these bands weren't metal bands, but, I did grow to love metal so much more because of concerts I went to just for shits and giggles because it was so cheap to see these bands compared to going to shows in Toronto. I was seeing bands I wouldn't normally see in Canada because it would just be too expensive for me; I live 2 hours from Toronto/a decent venue and normal concert prices for these bands would be around 35 Canadian dollars. I really was able to expand my listening repertoire while living in Helsinki. My friend would want to see a band that I had heard of but never listened to before and I’d agree to go, then I would come out with a new band that I was into. This is when my love of Folk/Viking/Pagan metal really ignited; I had always liked the idea of it but had only ever really listened to less than a handful of decent bands from those subgenres. It was from seeing these bands live that I was able to fully appreciate their music - for example Lauri “Varulven” Õunapuu of Metsatöll who made me dizzy from the amount of times he switched from guitar to a traditional instrument that I’ve never even seen before. If you can play bagpipes and make them sound badass, I’m pretty sold on your music.

           

I think that could be where Finland has such a strong connection to music. You may or may not know, Finns are NOT Vikings (Finland is a Nordic country not a Scandinavian one. Educate yourselves) so that means they don’t have the same Viking lore as the Scandinavian countries. Which means their mythology is not centered on warriors. Without going into it too much, Finnish Paganism has lots of nature (birds, lots of birds) and lots of music; the stories were passed down orally through runo songs for centuries before Elias Lönnröt wrote them down in The Kalevala. The main character in The Kalevala, the shaman Väinämöinen, who has been identified as one of Tolkien's sources for the character of Gandalf, is portrayed as having an amazing voice and carrying a kantle made of a pike's jawbone with him everywhere he goes. A kantele made of a pike’s jawbone? Sounds pretty metal to me. I took a class at the University of Helsinki that was called The Kalevala in Music. In that class we focused a lot on the classical composers that wrote music based around the Kalevala, but we also talked a lot about modern day Finnish musicians that use the Kalevala for inspiration, like Amorphis and Korpiklaani. How cool is the idea that Amorphis can play the main stage at Tuska Open Air Metal Festival, the biggest Metal music festival in the Nordic countries, and all they do is sing about centuries-old myths of their home country and a large number of people in attendance won’t have any idea that Mermaid is actually about Väinämöinen being a creep about marrying Joukahainen’s beautiful sister, Aino, who had been promised to him if he saved her brother, so she turns herself into a salmon. The mythological Finns fought with songs and spells rather than relying on swords and other weapons all the time. It’s not surprising that music is such a part of Finnish life that it’s basically second nature to Finns.

I haven't yet been fortunate enough to stay in Finland past May, so I've missed the Finnish summers which means I haven't had the chance to attend the copious amounts of festivals that happen here in the summertime. But if Wacken, in Germany, is the biggest metal music festival, Finland has to take the cake for the most metal music festivals. Tuska Open Air, Sauna Open Air, Provinssirock and Nummirock being some of the big names, along with a host of smaller festivals; you could probably do a festival a weekend if you had the time and funds. I’ve only ever been to one metal festival, and I guess only one summer music festival, and it was this past summer when I went to Mayhemfest at Ontario Place. If you want to know how tiny the metal scene is in Toronto, the bands at Mayhemfest were complaining that it wasn’t worth it to do a Toronto date because it was the smallest turnout on that tour, a measly 7000 people. A band like Children of Bodom can easily sell out, or at least pack a house, in Finland, and probably most other places, like Germany, but as one of the bands at Mayhem, they were on a side stage. I went to see Finntroll in Toronto before I moved back to Finland this summer and there were probably just over 100 people there. It was lovely because it was an awesome small show but that would never happen in Finland. I think it’s threat to future decent metal shows in Canada because the bands and their management and whatever other powers that be don’t see the point if no one is going to show up if they can just focus on places where they are assured a big turnout.

            Let's get back to the metal culture that thrives in Finland. Remember how I mentioned Vreth saying that it was metal all the time in every bar? That's because there is a scene for it, meaning that more than one bar can survive on catering exclusively to a specific subculture, even though people outside the subculture go to these places as well. You don't get that in Canada, or at least I haven't found it. We might have Hot Topic (cue mass eye-roll) and the odd struggling shop that sells band merch and albums, poor HMV, but in Finland, at least in the bigger cities, you can easily find a record store that is stuffed full of the albums you are looking for; Music Hunter in Helsinki and Swamp Music Second Hand in Tampere, my favourite second-hand music shops: CDs and vinyl galore. I can sit in the main building of my university, Tampereen Yliopisto, and probably see 10 metalheads walk past me within an hour, no problem. Every Christmas season there is a musical event called Raskasta Joulua, which roughly translates to Heavy Christmas, which is a bunch of well-known Finnish metal musicians, including Marco Hietala of Nightwish, Tarot, and Northern Kings, Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica and Northern Kings, Ilja Jalkenen, ex-Kiuas, Ari Koivunen of Amoral, JP Leppäluoto of Northern Kings, Harmaja, Charon, and ex-Poisonblack, as well as a host of other Finnish musicians, singing Christmas tunes with a metal twist. They do quite a few shows in Finland and they get a huge turnout. I went to one of the Helsinki shows back in December 2011 (it's so popular that they have to do two shows in Helsinki) and it was fantastic. It really showed how metal is pretty mainstream in Finland because among the metalheads there were business people in suits and ties and other "ordinary" people who you'd never see at a metal show in any other country. In fact, I think this is the perfect example of just how metal Finland is. Maybe it’s because Finland is quite a small country compared to Canada, in both geography and population, so everything is a bit more concentrated here. Unlike in other countries where the top 40 radio playlist are lacking in metal-ness, in Finland, it’s perfectly normal to hear one of the many Finnish metal acts on mainstream radio and to know loads of people who are into metal bands across all age groups. If metal is a subculture of outsiders, I think they can find a home in Finland. 

Don't forget to comment! You can also send me questions to my Tumblr and you can check out my Flickr, which consists of many pictures of Finland!