High Heels and Broken Bones

Graveyard Shifters hail from Kerava in Finland, the same city as Finnish thrash pioneers Stone and Statue. The band is called "thrash metal/crossover" on this site, but their logo among others says "crust punk 'n' roll". So what do these guys have in store for us?

I don't know how many metalheads around the world are familiar with Turbonegro. But Turbonegro was a punk band that added some better members, reshuffled their lineup but didn't want to sack their former bass player, so he was put on piano instead. Not being a good piano player by any means, he mainly thumped on a few keys to contribute to "grand finales" in wall-of-sound compositions. The resulting genre is called scandirock, and is very much present in Graveyard Shifters' sound.

From the get-go, High Heels & Broken Bones gives us songs that are mainly punk in a scandirock sound. Song structures are crescendo-friendly with the lead guitar constantly licking and meandering over the main riffs. A few songs ib, the single-chord piano thumping appears too. The fact that none of the band members played piano was not a problem, they just added a session pianist. There is also the session percussionist Herbert Smith whom I can't really tell what adds to the mix. The most archetypical scandirock song on here is "Firestarter", if you don't know this genre from before and want a quick introduction.

If you are into metal and not so much punk, chances are that you are not too keen on such an introduction. For me it was a disappointment checking these guys out, thinking they might be inspired by their city-fellows Statue.

The lyric matter fits the genre I guess, it's mostly about partying. On a more curious note, some of the lyrics seems to contain catchphrases from old Eminem albums, such as "I Just Don't Give a Fuck" and "I Am Whatever You Say I Am". I don't know if this is coincidental or a hommage. Speaking of influences, the vocalist borders on screamo, for instance on "Bender". What I don't hear, on the other hand, is much thrash influence on here.

Lastly a note about the cover. It's cool enough, with a color scheme of light blue and toxic green. It's supposedly based on the Aino Triptych painting by Aleksi Gallen-Kallela, albeit very loosely. "The cover art just tells you what we Finns are like, and how others see us", according to the band's press release. Well, I don't know about that. Aino looks to be wading through a sea of green beer bottles, but non-Finns associate them more with Koskenkorva vodka.