Year: 2025
Label: Kymijoen levyt
Everything about Finnish Kuningas and their new, second EP Naisia spells out loudly in big capital letters an earnest albeit clumsy love for heavy metal. From the shakily hand-written promo sheet to the rudimentary cover art to the crude musicianship, two words describe the EP perfectly: crude… and METAL.
The crudity isn’t unintentional, though. The promo sheet makes that abundantly clear, describing how copious amounts of alcohol was consumed during the recordings, and how the band’s core concept is the bukowskian “Don’t Try.” The EP sounds like it does on purpose.
And, believe you me, that is important context.
Because from the first notes of opening track Villi yö, the abject sloppiness of the musicianship slaps the listener in the face like a soggy sock. The drummer pounds away with abandon but little precision. The riffing is all over the place, sometimes a little ahead, at other times lagging behind. The vocal lines sort of sit in with the music, but definitely not quite, and they’re delivered with feeling – again, not with precision.
Naisia absolutely sounds like it was written, rehearsed and recorded whilst under the influence, in one take. It’s clumsy, it’s wobbling, it’s sloppy, it’s amateurish. From a conventional point of view with conventional standards, Naisia is easy to consider substandard.
But that’s from a conventional point of view. By now it should be obvious that Kuningas flick a finger towards conventional standards. And come as no surprise that when looking at Naisia from a different perspective, it has other things going for it.
The biggest of which is the songwriting. Beneath the sloppy facade, most of these songs are pretty killer. Opener Villi yö, mentioned already above, features some absolutely killer old school heavy metal/NWOBHM style riffing and a straightforward, violent chorus that’s catchy as fuck. Rock N roll huora sounds like a fall-down drunk, slowed down version of Judas Priest style 70’s heavy metal – complete with cowbell.
And the pick of the litter: Palavan rakkauden yö. Beneath the heavy metal facade, this is a pure 80’s Finnish uusi aalto or suomirock track, reminiscent of bands like Nuket and other Finnish heavier rock acts of the 80’s. This composition is a fucking pop hit with a massively singalong chorus, killer riffing and authentically classic, ever-so-slightly clumsy but earnest lyrics.
And, definitely, it makes sense to interpret the less-than-tight musicianship via the bukowskian “Don’t try” ethos. Kuningas are all about that raw, unfiltered, undiluted feeling. Not finesse, not frills and thrills, not flashy showmanship. There is a purity to Naisia, a honesty stripped of the pretenses of technical prowess. In this sense, Kuningas is as much a concept as a band.
Kuningas asks the question: “what is heavy metal?” And the answer I extract from Naisia is: raw emotion, primal energy, pure love for loud rock & roll music; a very real joie de vivre in playing hard and rough music regardless of how technically pure it is.
And a deep love of alcohol, of course.
It sounds fancy beyond justification, but in a way Kuningas is a booze-drenched, low-brow gesamtkunstwerk. A concept wherein the drunken sloppiness of the musicianship and the lack of finish in the songwriting must be taken as entirely deliberate and as core tenets. But, at the same time, as perfectly honest instead of some kind of pretentious performance art.
For sure, a great many people will dismiss Naisia because it’s so sloppy and unpolished. Others will revel in the same and laugh at it like some kind of joke. And with full respect for their right to do so, I say both are missing the point. Kuningas most definitely do have a humorous glimmer in their eye, but despite that I’m inclined to believe they are serious about their music – and their rather off concept.
And that’s why I like Naisia because it is like it is, not despite it. This should sound sloppy, the vocalist should have this rasp that sounds like he’s been downing raw booze for days, the songs should sound like they’re first iterations. Because herein is found the primal purity of heavy metal in its most condensed form: loud, obnoxious, powerful, stupid, awesome, hard. Fun.
Only Death Is Real 