The deep and lush tones which resound from this album told me that this band comes from Finland before I’d even looked it up. It’s a strange thing but many Finnish bands seem to conjure up a melodic and innocent sound which is tinted with a sinister streak. The styles are varied, but I’m thinking of bands like Poisonblack, Sentenced, Charon, Amoral and Oddland.
Callisto can be added to this select bunch as a point of reference, but like the works of the aforementioned bands, there’s a great deal of originality and imagination in “Secret Youth”. Their fourth album release is a collection of accessible and sometimes commercial-sounding heavy rock tunes but with interesting and creepy structures. The result is compelling and even haunting tracks such as the spine-tingling opener “Pale Pretender”. A feature I particularly liked about this album is that the band is willing to experiment and set off into deeper and darker sonic territories with devastating impact without ever losing sight of the central structure.
“Backbone” is at the darker end of the scale, combining a riot of sonic colour with a heavy air of despair and melancholy. The lush guitar work juxtaposes the gloom. It’s a strange choice for a single, but it’s a deeply atmospheric track with a slight tinge of Green Carnation about the vocals. My choice of single (what the hell do I know about it) would be the following track “Acts”. The drum and guitar work are again like sonic magic, weaving exotic patterns. The vocal work, which shares the richness of Poisonblack and Charon, is both powerful and beautiful. After a cosmic journey through the stars, there’s another deep and thoughtful assault in “Lost Prayer”. Another striking feature about this album is the quality and exploitation of sound. The singer’s crystal clear voice is expanded to give it an echo effect, while the instrumental work behind it is not only rich and varied, but is deliberately and disturbingly distorted. The result is not a wall of sound because it’s not so heavy as to be indistinguishable but layer upon layer of intrigue and meaning. The structures are not normal yet manage to be captivating.
“Breasts of Mothers” has threat and danger running through it, but yet is cause for delight with its chunky rhythm. Dreamy, haunting …. “Grey Light” takes the sinister mood further but all the usual paradoxes are there: an overtly commercial and melodic song with floating mobility and a distorted sound wall. Each passage conveys its own image – “cinematic” tends to be the word used for this these days. The songs have a suggestion of being conventional, while tracks like “Ghostwritten” push the boat out and explore heavy and experimental territories. It’s kind of post metal but expressed through a series of unusual dark and atmospheric soundscapes instead of the traditional lingering build up. The album ends gloomily with “Dam’s Lair Road”. It had been heading this way, and I personally would have liked some of the earlier sonic magic, but ending on a dreamy atmospheric swirl is appropriate to this album of many sides.
Every ounce is extracted from each passage within each track, and there is no dominance as layers of interesting sounds are coherently superimposed upon each other. “Secret Youth” is a kaleidoscope of dark and atmospheric intrigue.
(9/10 Andrew Doherty)
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