Among the Ruins

After a difficult start, Norrhem quickly improved their performance. It took just six month after their first powerful statement, the debut “Vaienneet voittajat”, then they reappeared with “Among the Ruins”. Okay, it is only an EP with three tracks, but 15 minutes of good music are always a reason to feel fine. Of course, the EP still shows a less mature performance than their later works, but all trademarks already occur. Apart from the cold and natural power of their tracks, I am speaking in particular about their “Nordic” harmonies. It is no folklore shit and no pagan stuff, but their melody lines always catapult me into the cold polar circle. Only the Northern lights are missing. No matter how long I look out of the window, I do not see them dance at the sky.

The king of the sonic trio is “Tuhannen vuotta”. It has a very harsh basic tone, it does not lack high velocity, the vocals reflect hostility and determination, the riffing is great and, finally, the sporadically used keyboards add an almost supernatural touch. The title track is slightly weaker, but also good. The straight hammering at the beginning appears slightly imprecise and improvable, the pretty meaningless atmospheric ending is too long, but the centre of the track provides you with another dose of total “Norrhemic” metal. These two songs shine with a formidable vitality, every now and then not too far away from the Korpiklaani feeling, but complemented by an unswerving black metal underground feeling.

The closer marches to a different drummer or, to be more precise, to no drummer at all. Its a rainy number with an acoustic guitar and almost Graveland-esque background keyboards. There is also a sad, melancholic keyboard melody which takes the lead two times. I know more exciting tracks than this one, but it has a natural charm and scores with Scandinavian integrity, so to say. Given these features, it is surely no downer, although it is absolutely no metal track. As a result, we have a properly EP with three strong songs that I can recommend with a good conscience – just like almost any release of this Finnish band.