Saatto

I’m not even sure where to start with this masterpiece. I was revisiting it and this album never lets me down, in my humble opinion it’s a damn near perfect record that gets better with every listen. Let me share some of my general thoughts and feelings regarding this album!

The lyrical themes are consistent throughout the album and every song has a clear purpose, none of these songs feel like fillers. An album mainly about death and longing can sometimes feel a bit cliché and overly melodramatic but this album does it extremely well. I genuinely feel bad for anyone who doesn’t speak Finnish because the lyrics on this one are absolutely beautiful. Other themes this album touches on are remorse and loss, there are no happy uplifting themes ruining the perfect depressing vibe that this album has going on. I definitely tend to get a bit emotional when listening to this album and for a very good reason.

The first song is an instrumental named after some lyrics from a well-known Finnish children’s song (“Ja toinen yötä rakastaa” = “And the other one loves the night”) which to me was instantly a very interesting intertextual reference. It fits the theme of the album really well since that song is strangely morbid for a children’s song. It's also a brilliant introduction to the next song "Peikonmieli" (= "Goblin's mind"), since said children's song is also about a goblin. The instrumental is a calming and beautiful 2 minutes before we get into the growling on the second track. The contrast is really nice and the sudden drums, guitars and bass almost scare you and get you right back on track after that zen moment.

I adore the kind of vocal style the band does on this album with the high and low growls and the occasional beautiful clean vocals. Especially the songs “Valkoinen Satama - Tyven”, with absolutely divine vocals by Sara Strömmer and the last title track “Saatto” with very strong vocals by Jani Rämö. Both of whom were guest musicians on this album which I find awesome, so many incredibly talented musicians got together to create this record.

The song that originally made me want to purchase this record on CD was the fourth track, Amor Vincit Omnia. I read an interview where the singer-guitarist Pete Lehtinen gave some insight on the songs and he said that that song was written about Vilja-Eerika Tarkki, an 8-year old girl who died on Mother’s Day in 2012 as a result of neglect and abuse from her dad and stepmother. I desperately wanted to read the lyrics but since I couldn’t find them I bought the CD in the hopes that it would have them on the leaflet. It did, and I added all the lyrics here for everyone else to read. That song is definitely one of the most crushing songs I’ve ever heard and it brings this album a whole new level of sadness and seriousness since that was a death that really impacted the whole country. Her story fits the album's theme perfectly and the song was clearly made respectfully with the best intentions.

Another song, well, a pair of songs, that really stand out to me are “Valkoinen Satama - Haaksi” and “Valkoinen Satama - Tyven”. These songs have almost the same lyrics but are drastically different. Like Pete said in that interview, the first one is like a cold and exhausting journey and the latter one is a beautiful return home. Once again the contrast is really interesting and beautiful, and this time we go from a very heavy sound to a beautiful and calm one. It almost feels like a metaphor for grief, first you’re angry and in shock but later you accept and learn to live with it.

Overall this album is very consistent and interesting. It doesn’t get boring because of the amount of contrast, very intelligent songwriting and beautiful melodies. I’d definitely recommend this album to anyone who wants to get more into that dark metal sound, because even though this sounds relatively heavy it’s not really throwing you into the very deep end because it does have a lot of melody and a solid amount of clean vocals. Definitely one of my favorite albums I own!