Demo I

With one foot in the atmospheric black metal camp and the other in noisy power electronics / experimental territory, Vihameditaatio should have plenty to offer in the way of bleak, dark and powerfully menacing music on their first release. Opening track "Abstrakti Saatana" gives us a taste of V's style: screechy high-pitched electronic drone, banging percussion, growling gritty bass and jangling guitars, surprisingly melodic and even laid-back if moody, overseen by ghostly shrieking vocals in the background.

The tracks that follow are not very different in style but they do feature distinct riffs and melodies, very bleak and melancholy, accompanied by more scratchy deep-groaning bass and washed-out constant screaming. Even though the riffs do repeat and give some basic structure to songs, overall the songs lurch and wander, occasionally battening down and reducing to a single howling guitar feedback drone before expanding again. While the shrieking is an important element in all songs and adds bitter emotion, it can be distracting as well and often the best moments in the songs are those that are purely instrumental. The musicians themselves recognise they can't always depend on screaming and one track "Yöajan Estetiikka (Night-time Aesthetics)" features some non-BM vocals and shouting in a song that in steely bleak mood and dark urban blues style approaches the terrain of prolific fellow Finnish experimental black metallers Circle of Ouroborus. This song is more distinguishable from the others by its extended instrumental passages of solemn bass-heavy wandering through a desolate setting of shrieking and an atmosphere of hopelessness and dark reverb.

Just when you think this recording couldn't be any more sombre and sadder, the last track descends into utter hopelessness and mania with a deep, almost monstrous bass swirling at the bottom of a chasm and screams racing up and down in an unseen vertical tunnel that may have no ending.

I like these guys' desolate style even if the vocals are much less interesting and varied than they could be. The songs are not bad although they peak early on and don't change much in emotional intensity. In the last track especially, although the mood is much deeper and more hopeless than on previous tracks, there isn't much progress in the music and the song ends up flailing all the way through. The musicians have their work cut out in creating loosely structured songs and instrumental pieces that have some direction and focus, that can take listeners on a journey through the various stages of hopeless depression leading into madness. Still, this is a first release and Vihameditaatio have time, energy and passion on their side.