VALSE TRISTE "Turha Ruokkia Ruumiita" CD

"Impressive twenty-song second full-length by this now-venerable Finnish band that has been around since 1983. Instead of treading the straight and narrow "classic Finnish hardcore" path, this is wild and chaotic experimental hardcore, charged with energy and unpredictability, and refined by the band's growth in precision, skill, and delivery. Dual vocals create a new zenith of "caustic" and "scalding" as they shout and spew over herky-jerky hardcore that seems to meet somewhere in between the bass-driven time-changing of NOMEANSNO and the swaggering, loose ram-charging of KAAOS. The lyrics (in translation from Finnish) are similarly offbeat, but deftly hide meaning in metaphor. Excellent recording and a nice gatefold; adventurous listeners take note." (MRR)