Tohcoth

Aarni is the project of one Markus Marjomaa or Master Warjomaa as he calls himself. The project started in 1988 and Tohcoth is the second album from him under the Aarni banner. The man is also involved in doom band Umbra Nihil but Aarni is basically his solo project.

The album starts with a drone like intro before launching in to the first proper song The Hieroglyph with a slow mournful doom metal riff that’s typical of most melodic European doom. That is, till the folk melody comes along to inject some life into the mournful nature of this music. The pattern is basically the same for the first four songs on Tohcoth. The songs are slow paced mournful doom metal anthems with the occasional chuggy riff and the odd folk melody with some of the flattest singing I’ve ever heard. Of these it’s Arouse Coiled Splendor that really stands out with a memorable guitar line and melody that manages to get inside your head.

While the album has that undeniable DIY bedroom-project stamp to it right through the eleven songs on offer, it’s from the title song onwards that things start to get really weird. There’s a feeling of Mr. Bungle that comes in simply because Master refuses to stick to one songwriting idea or style. The music is still doom metal with folk influences but there’s a lot of different stuff happening. All Along the Watchtowers starts with a quasi Thin Lizzy riff before going off into this chanting refrain and almost Skepticism type pace. Chapel Perilous is another schizophrenic beast that starts off with clean guitars and a pretty melody before going off into the kind of guitar madness that you’d find on a The Locust album albeit all done at the traditional doom pace.

The weirdness in Aarni is undeniable and there must have been a whole barrowful of drugs consumed to make music as fucked up as this but it’s the combination of the slow mournful pace and enough room in the songs for individual parts to stick out that make Tohcoth quite an interesting listen. Aarni also remind me a good deal of Nightstick in spirit and in their refusal to follow any sort of rules or boundaries in their song writing.

Ultimately though, I get the feeling that some of it is just weird for weird’s sake. The music on offer is schizophrenic enough to appeal to followers of Mike Patton’s Ipecac label while being doom enough to sit quite comfortably with the Southern Lord roster. That being said, Tohcoth is more an interesting oddity than a doom metal necessity.

Originally written for http://www.kvltsite.com