Jumalhamara – Resignaatio
Jumalhamara execute layered and dense Finnish black metal that strays from their counterparts by avoiding the grit and grimy rock fueled fuzz often attached to the BM movement in Finland. This allows the music to take on a much more down trodden and at times depressive fog of melody and moments of noisy shoegaze clean guitar. The background swarms with feedback and at times an experimental atmosphere of effects that offer up a very schizophrenic vibe that put me in mind of the 2nd half of Godflesh’s “Streetcleaner”. When you strip away the atypical elements that comprise the music of Jumalhamara to look at the black metal foundation, what shines through is a rock solid platform of dissonance, layered/screaming vocals and wandering riff ideas that are obviously intentional and formed, but come off as improvised over an unrelenting blast beat. Everything I have described takes place in the very fresh sounding, even nightmarish opening track, “Ecstasy in Blood – A Ballad”. Even though the overall sound canvas of this recording strikes me as having a bit too much high end rolled off the top, I found the roomy drum tone and varying degrees of distortion on the guitars to hurl Jumalhamara even further into a realm that makes them difficult to pigeonhole stylistically. Black metal and a very dark take on alt rock without adhering to the often abused “suicidal”/woe is me trappings of both genres is what you should go into Resignaatio expecting and just let the experience of listening to this brave wash of sound overcome and inspire you, for Jumalhamara are a truly unique band worthy of your attention. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to listen to a piece of music and really not know what’s going to happen next.
Ahdistuksen Aihio Productions
Worm Gear 