‘Melodic’ is a curious word to those of us drawn to less-than-mainstream stuff. I mean pop your average Beyonce fan down in front of something by, say, Chthonic or Selfless as recently reviewed varying examples and they’ll just hear some bloke shouting, screaming and growling over a road drill. Me and you, we hear songs and tunes and melody. So when I say that Unkind are highly melodic bear that in mind.
This is thirty odd minutes of Finnish stuff from that riotously rowdy nexus where hardcore, crust and d-beat create a pit. Their second full length for Relapse, it sticks with those pissed off vocals, hard ‘n’ crunchy riffs that still roll like something from a steel mill rather than chug, hard edged d-beat drumming and, as the crust on top, ladles of hook riddled guitar breaks that whilst a mile thick never tear away from the angry, bruising body.
The title track has an ominous rising feel to it with the riff chords and the metal guitar sound. Nice production just kind of letting the beast rage in the cage. Short, blunt blows to the skull stuff. ‘Vihan Lapset’ picks up pretty much in the exact same place with the skull beating before grinding on the breaks for a downbeat section that goes from Katatonia playing hardcore to almost hitting the sludge which would keep you on your toes even if it wasn’t so catchy. This slide into the dark and ominous is followed with ‘Valtakunta’ which is like some black hole meeting of At The Gates, Jack Frost and Agruss. Suddenly it’s not the ferocity of the anger that concerns but the tar pit heart of this album, confirmed when this mini -epic slides into a sludge hit for a couple of notes before seeping into ‘Viallinen’ which crawls across the stinking floor before clawing its way into the kind of harrowing that Integrity circa ‘Seasons In The Size Of Days’ slowly pulled or faces off to. And with the balance of melody that AFI were so bloody good at on ‘Black Sails In The Sunset’.
That’s the difference with Unkind: Lots of hardcore/crust influenced bands can be pissed off but dropping into the pit of fear, draping themselves in a heavy black cloak of atmosphere and bringing the malevolence is such a hard trick to pull off it seems. But they do. And getting tunes like ‘Olemisen Palko’ stuck in your head hasn’t been done to me since the aforementioned AFI (honestly if all you know are their MTV emo period, go back in time). And with way better vocals.
They leave us with Saattokoti, a brooding keyboard drone with a bittersweet tune picked out on banjo and…. fuck, it works. Almost the perfect ending.
So there it is. Angry, violent hardcore crust with heavy, brooding atmospherics and a talent for melody that is at times scary. Short, heavy, driving and frankly I enjoyed the fuck out of it. Worth so much more than a casual glance, people; so much more.
(8.5/10 Gizmo)
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