Year: 2025
Label: Inverse Records
Already for decades, Finland has been a veritable breeding ground of black metal. Where in the 90’s Finland never really achieved the status our neighbours to the west did, despite having a couple of absolute primogenitor acts here, since then Finland has arguably eclipsed them both.
And where Norwegian black metal, for instance, had a rather brief heyday and has since struggled to reach the artistic levels of those halcyon days, it seems Finnish black metal continues to forge on strong. And not just in an obviously Finnish style – you know what style and sound I’m talking about.
Valontuoja from Helsinki, for example. This one man act sounds more like something out of the Black Twilight Circle (Dolorvotre maybe), or from the Portuguese scene, or maybe from France, or like one of the newer breed of vampiric black metal acts. There’s very little markedly Finnish in their sound.
This means shrill, piercing treble-y guitars shredding fast, tremolo picked riffs and predominantly faster paces. Over the maelstrom of fast and raw but still melodic black metal, haunting lead guitar melodies are added. The hoarse vocals are buried pretty deep in the mix. The overall impression isn’t particularly aggressive, but still sufficiently so.
Valontuoja’s is not a particularly original sound. At the same time, it’s not one that’s constantly being done to absolute death. In fact, stylistically, they manage to hit a rather good spot somewhere between familiar and, uh, not-too-familiar.
Musically, Tulesta syntynyt suffers from somewhat samey songwriting. A fast plod with the drums, shredding melodic riffing, a bit of barked vocals and a strongly treble-y lead melody. Essentially all songs are built from very similar pieces, and sound quite a lot like each other.
However, if to some extent Valontuoja repeat one pattern, at least it’s a nice pattern and they repeat it well. Essentially, perhaps Valontuoja only know one recipe, but they can make some pretty tasty cookies from it. And sure enough, there is the occasional moment when a melody here or there makes the listener perk up: Aurinkoroihun kirous with its beautiful lead guitar very obviously rises up as the peak moment of the album.
As it stands, Tulesta syntynyt is a bit of a diamond in the rough. The songs, and consequently the album as well, would benefit from more differentiating characteristics. And perhaps the vocals could be a bit less buried. But even with these shortcomings, it’s a solid album. Traditional but not entirely generic, raw but melodic, Tulesta syntynyt finds a good place between many extremes.
Only Death Is Real 