PERMANENT SOLUTION: Permanent Solution

Release year: 2023
Label: Misantropia Records

Sometimes a bit of obscurity can be a good thing. It can lend a sense of mystery or excitement to something. At other times, it may be even counterproductive. Ultimately, Finnish Permanent Solution’s choice of obscurity lands more in the latter department.

You see, their track titles are all rather unintelligible number combinations. This makes it incredibly hard to remember which track is which. Especially as they are in no apparent order on the album. 2-312 is the second track, 7-1711 the second. And the third is of course 1-231. And you try to remember which track is which – which one had that nice guitar part or melody? But on the other hand, the listener doesn’t really become involved in trying to find out why the track titles are what they are.

OK, with that out of my system, let’s take a look at the album beneath the wilful obscurity. It’s black metal, in a style that throws the listener back to the early noughties in more ways than one.

The most obvious is the sound. One could call it unpolished and rough around the edges, or maybe just crude. It’s a bit of both, in a way that ultimately sounds more a result of deliberate choice than lack of skill. Especially during the faster section, things become a chaotic muddle not entirely unlike Satanic Warmaster’s debut album Strength & Honour – but not quite as chaotic or muddled. Otherwise, too, the sound leans towards a certain unpolished rawness, which is not quite demo level, but a far cry from what can be achieved even with home equipment these days.

Stylistically, Permanent Solution – whose name obviously refers to suicide – also remind me of the early noughties’ underground scene. Maybe one can hear a bit of Horna and some other Finnish bands of that era, but there’s also more than a passing whiff of the then nascent substyles atmospheric and suicidal depressive black metal in here. Not so much Xasthur or Shining, perhaps, but maybe a bit of Krohm. Atmosphere and melodies are balanced by sections of blasting, abrasive rawness. Forlorn passages segue into throat tearing rage. And furious tremolo picking finds a balance in somber melancholy.

Especially for those used to a bit more polish in the production, Permanent Solution’s debut may require a bit of work to get into. Musically, despite the rawness of expression, the album is quite accessible (at least as far as black metal goes): in balancing melody and rawness, fury and atmosphere, it might well harmonize even with people whose tastes usually lean more towards a bit more melodic and atmospheric black metal.

And ultimately, even the sound shouldn’t be a deal breaker. There certainly are recordings out there that sound much rougher and cruder. After a while, I doubt just about anyone will pay much attention to it. And then, what’s left is a promising debut. A bit of DSBM mixed with a lot of classic 00’s underground black metal is a working recipe; the only thing left to fix are some tracks that actually stick with the listener.

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