Routakeha - Ihmisyyden Illuusiot

Finnish band Routakeha (Circle of Frost) started out in 2007 and has since released this short musical journey entitled ‘Ihmisyyden Illuusiot’ (‘Illusions of Humanity’). You may notice a lot of translations, but releasing music in their native Finnish is what these guys do, unfortunately this does limit their progression in my mind into to European and Worldwide metal spectrum, even though there are English translations on their myspace blogs. Musically, they have been described as “melodic and thrashy”, this is true; one thing this does not describe is the immense wealth of good quality riffs and guitar work transpiring, especially during the opening track ‘Omenat’. Blessed with some intelligent arrangements, the band give you the listener plenty of that infamous light and shade, even breaking down into almost ballad territory mid way through the aforementioned track, but not to fear, it is not long before they brandish their thrashing routes and pick up the tempo again. I don’t like the attempt at gruff shouting during ‘Tahto’ but musically after a somewhat lame start, those riffs come back in dominance to provide even the most apathetic metal listener with some guitar work worth taking note of. The final track ‘Ihmisen Tahra’ has a little Maiden, and little thrash, it mixes well, again, though I don’t like the nasal vocals, but you finally hear the double kick drums in the mix before their Iron Maiden-esq classic metal guitar solo. Musically it is vibrant and varied music, you can hear where these guys are going, its getting there, just a little push further in the vocal delivery would do the trick, but what a great way to start in general.

A very solid release, hampered by the language for me in the lyrics, and it will put a lot of metal fans off, however, musically Routakeha have a voice in the metal and rock world and deserve your ears for the brief 20 odd minutes it takes to listen to all of this current release.

1. Omenat (Apples)
2. Tahto (The Will)
3. Ihmisen Tahra (The Stain Of A Human Being)


Self released
Reviewer: twansibon
Apr 24, 2010

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