Turmion kätilöt - Minä määrään

Turmion kätilöt - Minä määrään
I expect this is a name that is familiar to most readers of this blog, but for those who aren't familiar with Turmion kätilöt (hereafter referred to as Tk for simplicity's sake) here's some basic information (for those familiar with the band, I'll provide a line break where the intro ends)
Tk are from Finland (their name translates to something like Midwives of Perdition, which gives you an idea of their basic concept) and they are one of those bands which I love, that sing (almost) exclusively in their own language. To date Tk have released two full length albums (2004's Hoitovirhe and 2006's Pirun nyrkki) and one EP (2005's Niuva 20) all of which were, in my opinion, excellent. The thing about Tk is that their albums are pretty drawn between really, really good songs and fairly mediocre ones. Case in point is Hoitovirhe, which has about 6 (7 if you count the minute long instrumental intro to Kärsi) incredible tracks and 5 mediocre ones.
The band plays a style of heavy metal that is extremely influenced by dance music, which of course is a fairly well known genre in North American heavy metal as well. The thing about Tk is that their music has elements of much heavier subgenres of heavy metal than generally surface in industrial metal. I read the term "blackened death metal" somewhere last year, and the first part of it stuck with me for just this band. There are elements of death and black metal in the band's sound, especially after their first album, both in the instruments (note especially the verses of the title track to Pirun nyrkki) and lead vocalist MC Raaka Pee has a very growled vocal style reminiscent of these extreme metal genres.
The "band" as such currently only really exists in the touring format, with Raaka Pee providing vocals, mixing and keyboards and DJ Vastapallo providing the rest of the instrumentation. Lyrically the band could be compared to earlier Rammstein lyrics, as much of them deal with violence and sex, which of course is the other element of the band, namely the live element. When performing live, the band members put on a show that is really in the vein of old school shock rock, with the band in S&M outfits or full body latex suits, or..you get the image...
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So why all this info? Because to appreciate the new single (which is all this is; two songs) one needs to know what the band is about.
I have to be honest, my first impression of the two new songs was not overly favourable. They were decent, but I figured they fit into the category of "4 or 5 songs that aren't that great." The thing is, my initial impression of Tk was overwhelmingly negative, to the point that I actually deleted the MP3s off my computer twice before I finally got into them on a trip to Toronto last year. The thing with this band is, once I got past my initial neutrality, they have become one of my all time favourite bands, so I kept playing the tracks.
It's pretty obvious from the first moments of Minä määrään that the band are continuing on the much heavier, extreme metal influenced style they started to adopt on Niuva 20, which I applaud. The problem with me lies more in the vocals, in that I'm about 90% certain Spellgoth (the second, live vocalist) has actually been singing in the studio. While I have nothing against the guy, frankly I findhis voice a little irritating at times, something in the slightly higher register of his growled vocals just don't work as well with the music. And if that is Raaka Pee, then he's using a different vocal style which I don't like so much. Thing is, I got used to it after a while, and I'm becoming increasingly okay with it. Especially since the vocals which I'm speaking of seem much less prevalent now than they did at first listen. Overall I'd say this is one the good tracks, like Pirun nyrkk's Eläköön!, but not one of the great tracks, like that same album's title track, or Hoitovirhe's Rautaketju.
I was really excited by the second track, because I leaned about a week ago that it was actually a cover of an old Finnish pop song. The reason why I was so excited is that, listening to his late '80s styled song, I could just imagine the guitars and electronics of the Tk version...and yet two things struck me when I first started listening to Shuttle to Venus. First, it's not the original Finnish song, since this one is in English. My guess is Tk are covering some English language release, which was a bad move because Raaka Pee has a very heavy accent, making it hard to tell at times whether the lyrics are actually in English. Second, somehow my expectations were leading me to expect something a little different. It's grown on me as well, but the heaviness of the accent on this track irritates me, it makes me wish the band had decided to bring in another vocalist, like on their only other non-Finnish language track, the cover of Deep Purple's Stormbringer from the Niuva 20 EP. Again, it's a decent track, but not one of the excellent ones.
I suppose the final question really has to be, does this single make me more or less excited about the new full length, USCH!, being released next month. And I suppose that's a divided question. On the one hand, I'm not blown away by the new songs. I think they're good, but they aren't the ones that make me think "Fuck these guys are good!" when I'm listening. On the other hand, Tk are my favourite industrial metal band, and they are (right now, anyways) also my premier head banging band, so the prospect of a new album still makes me drool and get all excited. I would say that in one very important way the single did increase my excitement level, in that I do think the band have better stuff still waiting, unheard, from the new album (for the most part, the singles aren't my favourite songs from Tk albums) and even if these are as good as it gets, they're still above the average. Much as I hate to be one of those reviewers, if it weren't for their earlier work I would have been fairly blown away by the new songs.
7.5/10