I’m assuming this split’s title alludes to the location of where the three bands hail from in Western Finland. With three tracks from each band all offering that Finnish way of delivering ugly filth infested death metal the split kicks off with the three tracks from Kompost. Typically teeming with grotesque riffing and riddled with that sense of overarching gruesomeness Kompost’s contributions have a chaotic slant within the sonic beatings that ensues on all the songs. There is a violence that permeates their songs more than the other two bands as opener ‘Kuolemaa Maakunnassa’ so amply demonstrates, with frenzied detonations and aggressive vocals marrying up brilliantly. Equally frenetic is the follower ‘Sietoraja’ where the blasted styling offers visceral violence and unmitigated grisliness that only the Finnish scene seems able to craft. Closing their tunes is ‘Katso Pimeyteen’ and here we get some different dynamics, still inherently vile riddled but with pacing deviations plus a sense of melody with surging terror inflicted on the listener.
Living Inferno are next and their three tunes are equal to that of Kompost, though slightly cleaner in approach and sound it is firmly entrenched in a 90s style aura. At times I detected a slight blackened feathering to the vocals which whilst bellowing and deep have a sharpness too as their three tracks begin with ‘En Toivo Parempaa Maailmaa’ and immediately there is a sagacity for the melodic toning, saturating well-honed musicality. ‘Hour Of The Wolf’ follows and switches to slower pacing as the bass riff break is very cool indeed, as the demonically toned vocals inject a drama all bound together with great melodies. ‘Babylon The Great’ ends their triplet of tracks again sticking to a slower tempo as that bass work rears up again superbly. A fine set of songs from Living Inferno.
Closing the split is Tormenticon who previously have a self-titled album released in 2010 and nothing in between. Once more their music is 90s old school death metal personified, their opener ‘Crush The Resistance’ typifies this in fine fashion. There are elements of UK death metal in their songs, particularly Benediction with a grooving brutality. ‘Profiler’ follows and continues the brutal groove but adds some blasting forays for violence as their songs conclude with ‘Sumerian Talvi’. Here the band switches approach, doom-death initially the song unveils a crusty styling on the riff with some crushing double kick work to hammer home the bands deathly intent.
Well worth tracking down, this split release has excellent Finnish death metal and whilst the core of the bands is entombed in the guttural side of the genre there are nuances galore from all three bands, making this a fine release.
(8.5/10 Martin Harris)
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