KALMAH – THEY WILL RETURN
Century Media - 2002
By Rodrigo Escandon
They Will Return is the sophomore release of the Finnish band
Kalmah and everything has been improved this time around to make this album a great success. There were a couple of line-up changes and pretty big ones at that since both the drummer and bassist had to be replaced and the band had to start fresh with a new rhythmic section. But Timo Lehtinen (bass) and Janne Kusmin (drums) prove to be perfect additions to this band and definitely are an improvement over the previous members.
The songwriting is much stronger this time around as well. Each of the songs have their own voice, their own style and none of them sound alike. “My Nation” is one of the slower and heaviest songs of the album and Pekka (vocals) uses a lower growl to sing parts of the song and it definitely has to be something that the band should take advantage in future albums. “Swamphell” is a faster song that perfectly combines the lead guitars of Antti and the dazzling keyboards of Pasi. In
They Will Return Pasi takes a bigger role than he did in
Swamplord and it definitely enhances the songs. Plus, the way the keyboards are integrated into the songs make them sound completely different to other bands. Just imagine trying to listen to “Hollow Heart” without the keyboards and the song would seriously sound incomplete, that its missing something and this is a great example of how keyboards should be used in a melodic death metal band.
Antti and Pekka have also gotten more confident and try more things with the guitars. They are more aggressive, more melodic, faster and Antti really shows his skills with plenty of leads and solos. The solo of “Principle Hero” from 3:09 to 3:29 is seriously awesome! In “They Will Return” before the song even hits the 1:30 mark, Antti has already played two incredibly fast leads, and the melodic solo from 2:14 to 2:50 shows that he doesn’t have to play all that fast to come up with a great solo.
Another thing I need to mention are the lyrics written by Pekka. Pekka focuses on real life issues of his country which totally separates
Kalmah from other bands. Not many write about the sort of stuff that Pekka writes about and it’s quite refreshing to listen and read to this stuff.
This album shows a band that let it all out, held nothing back and had a lot of fun recording it. Of the newer melodic death metal bands that have sprouted like a bad weed,
Kalmah is one of the few that should definitely pay attention to. Highly recommended!
Century Media Website
Kalmah Official Website
