Metallijate

The Finnish death metal band Metallijate is probably the first band ever to do the classic heavy metal umlaut in reverse on purpose: "metallijäte" in Finnish mean "scrap metal" or "metal waste", but without the umlaut on the letter A it means... nothing. The next to unknown Australian prog metal band Etelantulet took their name from Finnish, though, "eteläntulet" being a very rarely used word for aurora australis, or the equivalent of aurora borealis on the southern hemisphere. The word is rarely used, because the history of the world being what it is, there's never been much reason to describe the aurora australis in Finnish. That band did indeed lose the umlaut from its name as well, but there is reason to believe they either forgot those by accident, couldn't find the correct key combo on their keyboards, or the umlaut fell off when the word was turned upside down on the way to Australia, and it's therefore probably unintentional, so they don't really count... I guess... Maybe?

The band has members with experience under their belt from such bands as Kaunis Kuolematon, a melodic death-doom outfit with some local success, and Crimson Sun, a locally pretty well-liked melodic heavy metal band with a rather listenable full-length called Fates recently released. Also, there likely is a connection between the band members and doom-death mastermind Tuomas Saukkonen, which probably means the band has had some exceptional opportunities to get some valuable tutoring at some point. The first self-titled EP also has a few hired guns on it, namely a bassist and a lady doing backing vocals, and it clocks in a meager 12 minutes of rather basic and perhaps mildly blackened death metal.

The relatively high-tempo EP sounds mostly like a steam locomotive, and there are virtually no unnecessary vocal melodies; instead, the vocal performance is a rather nice combination of screeching, light-weight throat growling, and outright yelling, and it fits the songwriting perfectly. The band doesn't really deviate from the basic tenets of death metal at any point, which,in this case, is nice. From a local perspective, the lyrics in Finnish and the fact that they can actually be understood are a big plus as well. Riffs are teeming and thriving, and the relatively brief length of three songs and a dozen minutes is a very suitably compact punch in the gut. It leaves the listener surprisingly hungry for more: no trickery or acrobatics, just basic death metal, in a tasty package.

Metallijate bears all the hallmarks of a side project, but the EP is a very likable piece of art. Half a dozen songs more on a similar quality level would definitely ensure a song portfolio for a 45 minute gig, and that would be lovely: this kind of basic death metal would work wonders in a small club setting, and on a live gig, at least yours truly could well consume half a dozen pints in that time. This stuff simply works!