Year: 2024
Label: Hell’s Tone Records
Has it really been two years already? It doesn’t seem like such a long time since Finnish Laki & Järjestys last released something – but, indeed, their debut album Uusi aika was released in 2022. How time does fly.
With their previous two releases (reviewed here and here), the Finnish oi! band have put out some of the best bootboy music ever released in Finland. So it’s safe to say the bar has been set pretty high. And, I must admit, when I heard the almost balladesque first teaser from this EP, Pohjois-Helsinki, I was initially a bit underwhelmed.
A ballad type track is something of an odd choice for a first single. Yes, it was different – but maybe even a bit too different. On the whole, however, Laki & Järjestys remain their familiar self on this four song EP.
That mean tough as nails, aggressive and uncompromising oi! oi! music. The vocals are a defiant snarl, the choruses are catchy and the riffs are as hewed from stone. In comparison to the album, Ei katumusta feels like a slight step back in style towards the debut 7″. This means a bit less of punk rock, a bit more of stiff necked brickwall oi!
And it’s hard to see that as a bad move. Just listen to the title track or Lyökää, pieskää, iskekää with its violent, forceful rhythm section and heavy-handed riffing; this is oi! as it should be. The guitar leads offer a more rocking counterweight, keeping things in balance.
After three tracks in the tried and tested Laki & Järjestys style, the EP wraps things up with the aforementioned Pohjois-Helsinki. It took me a listen or two, but after a while I started hearing the track very differently indeed. Ultimately, it rises up to become an absolute highlight of this overall very solid EP.
What Pohjois-Helsinki is, is a heartfelt love letter to the home neighbourshoods of the band: the rough, rugged and drab suburbs of northern Helsinki, contrasted with the natural beauty of the Vantaanjoki river flowing by. It’s a honest but loving look at the dreary yet in their own way beautiful working class tenement blocks; one which doesn’t shy away from the roughness and even cruelty of life there, but isn’t disheartened by it. An ode to the suburbs of the capital area – the suburbs where, I argue, the true spirit of the place is to be found.
As a born and bred native of those very same capital area suburbs, who has spent the better part of five different decades in them, the track resounds with me. It captures their essence.
And so, Ei katumusta is another fine notch in Laki & Järjesty’s discography. At this point, I confidently claim Laki & Järjestys as the best oi! group from Finland – ever.
Ei katumusta is a more than welcome sign of life from the group. Let’s hope a second full-length is in the cards… even if it means a wait of two more years.
Only Death Is Real 