SAATTUE -

SAATTUE – JÄÄHYVÄSTI – SPIKEFARM  
The band’s mixture of My Dying Bride and Sentenced sounds unsurprisingly warns of the Finnish origin of Saattue. The band’s use of Finnish as the language of choice for its name, titles and lyrics is a new twist with only a minority of Finland’s bands opting for this route. The band’s demo-turned-official album is an effigy of doom, gloom, big riffs and male and female vocals as bleak as the Scandinavian winter. The harmonized clean and growled vocals, slow beats, reverb-laden drums and backing synthesizers all hammer one point home. Saattue is not about to spread cheer to the listener. Upbeat to Saaattue is an intellectual American warmonger. With solemnity and earnestness as their guides the album surmounts its aggressive feeling to draw on an epic reaction. Varjojen Saattue is eleven minutes long and unyielding at the album’s end. It would have been better without the commercialism, but Spikefarm has not released the biggest offender of the genre either. - Anna Tergel