Sarastus

Here's very pleasant and relaxing guitar-dominated folk ambient music with a strong nature theme, heralded by field recordings of rain showers. While the EP is divided into nine chapters of music, listeners should realise the music is more or less continuous and should be heard as one work in its entirety. Due to its completely instrumental nature, the music can be enjoyed as background mood music as well as a piece in its own right.

The overall mood is very melancholy and grey, and the background showers don't help much to enliven listeners' feelings. Sole October Falls member M Lehto's feeling and passion for his creation are very prominent throughout the recording. Melodies drop off the guitar strings like heavy raindrops, rarely to be repeated. I have the impression that Lehto plays whatever comes into his head though he would have had an overall plan as to what was to be achieved with "Sarastus" and in that plan already had melodies and riffs set down to play. Sometimes other instruments such as flute and piano are featured though their appearances are so rare and brief that frankly I wonder why Lehto even bothers to include them.

There are some very beautiful melodies that could bear repeating if only to reinforce certain moods and impressions, and to help build particular atmospheres and give direction to the music. On occasion the music does give the impression of wandering about in circles in heavy wet weather. Sometimes the field recordings intrude too much on the music when they should only be a backdrop to the tunes. At times the melodies are a bit too fast and a slower pace with more space between notes (to invite meditation) would have been welcome. There may be parts where a softer production with slightly less sharp guitar tones would have benefited the music.

I think some editing for length could have made the music more focused and highlighted certain melodies and the emotion within them. With this kind of music, dominated by acoustic guitar, the choice of melodies takes on extra importance to give the EP structure and direction. "Sarastus" could have benefited from a narrower range of melodies or melodic motifs repeated a bit more often to keep the whole recording more self-contained and less like a meandering string of linked melodies.

Mikko Lehto did it again. After he has shown, what beauty he can create with distorted guitars on “The Streams Of The End”, he’s back with another wonderful folk release.

Musical wise there hasn’t changed much since the times of “Tuoni” or ”Marras”. Everything, what one could love from those two releases is present on this sadly very short EP. Mikko really shows that those two first releases weren’t just lucky strikes, but great talent. Yes I know, constant repetition of ones trademarks is boring. Motörhead did it and it was boring from start to finish. But here you get one great CD after another. Keeping such a high standard while already have released some of the best material of folk music isn’t the easiest task.

On “Sarastus” you can really feel the passion for the music. While the chords and melodies paint rather sad pictures in the mind of the listener, the whole aurora is very powerful. It’s a kind of magic, which only music with a heart and soul can create. And something that always impresses me is the constant perfection of the music. Mikko truly knows where he has to put the right notes in order to create the maximum of enjoyable music. Whereas other bands tend to stretch their songs and albums with worthless, unemotional junk, Mikko cuts everything down to the very quintessence. Because of that, these 19 minutes are far more enjoyable than a whole hour of lame repetition and bland riffs.

And even if you don’t concentrate on the guitars in the foreground, there’s still the fitting background consisting of noises from nature like the blowing of the winds through the woods or the constant dropping of a little streamlet that’s going to catch your attention.

So what’s the best conclusion to a review like this? Well I’d like to recommend this EP to everyone who likes really emotional music and isn’t too much of a purist of the metal genre. Check it out and it may become your very favourite CD in your collection.