Anatomia Fin: Sarcofagus

 

SWITCH TO POLISH

In regards to extreme music, the pioneer countries were basically: UK and Germany. UK was a key factor, coz Venom & Motorhead, but Germans were masters in a mass production (as we as mass killings of Poles). Brazilians very quickly caught up and tried that German Steel (gee, I wonder why South America is so influences by Germany, though 😏), and even amped it up to eleven. Puritan USA for a very long time did not want to play with satan, and a class act like Slayer was more of an exemption, rather than a rule, as the country was busy with their Glam / Hard Rock phase. Bah, Canada had more to be proud of -  Sacrifice, Razor, Exciter, Damnation, Witches Hammer Voivod, Piledriver, Slaughter, or Aggression (I wrote about them already, click it dude). Seriously, Canada is a highly underrated country, which is unfortunately treated as a joke (each comic book fan should know that Deadpool and Wolverine are written as Canadians, and the infamous animated show South Park is also from there).

And overall, I thought that I "know" something, as I heard thousands, no, tens of thousands of albums worth (I actually keep stats, and checking them, I see 14624 Extreme Metal tagged, since 2009). And suddenly, out of the blue, I've found this album in one of the online shop, ready to get. Something caught my attention, call it a hunch, especially that it did look like something released by High Roller Records *, but nope. This album got released on vinyl by Svart (which as a rule of thumb pushes anything, according to their location, that is Finnish by default), and, another surprise, by Nuclear War Now! A better recommendation wasn't necessary. The CD version is by some unknown Italian factory, so I'd rather not comment that. I won't be surprised, if after my post, even more re-releases get done, as I noticed recently, that there is this weird synchro, between what I do, and what gets pushed.

Ending my digression (albeit I love them), Finnish Sarcofagus had a tough road. Still one leg in the psychodelic and occult Hard Rock of the 70s, while, like many of their young contemporaries from the 80s, had a dream to be faster, heavier, and more aggressive than their idols. Sure, maybe I am exaggerating the part about speed and aggression, but considering that their first album from 1980 ("Cycle of Life") was released before the debut of Iron Maiden, Tank, Mercyful Fate, "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead, and hear hear, a year before "Welcome to Hell" by Venoma. Back then, it was over 3 years, before Hellhammer would appear, along with Bathory, suddenly a picture of pioneers starts to appear by itself.

The style of Sarcofagus can be summarized as Black Sabbath + Celtic Frost, but in a sloppier, amateurish tempos and with extra psychedelia. In 1982 they moved further into the Motorhead direction, but it was still a very innovative stuff. In 1980, they released two albums, the aforementioned, quirky "Cycle of Life", and today's hero, the "Envoy of Death", accordingly at the start and the end of the year. About their debut I might write in the future, as it's a good topic on its own. And while their first album was pretty much naive, the sophomore (okay, you know what I mean) is quite... mature. I mean, otherwise I wouldn't write about it, N'est-ce pas?

According to modern standards, one could easily dismiss this material as very archaic, and yeah, not going to argue with that. ł rzeczywistości, to brzmi archaicznie. But in this prehistoric beat, one can hear the essence and the spirit of Metal at its best, which does make for a comfortable listen.

I don't have to mention that creating such music was born out of pain. Not really sure about the recording process, but if we take into the account that Sepultura had a lot of problems during the creation of "Bestial Devastation EP" (1985), one can wonder, how any Finnish company had balls to invest in something so naughty and anti-culture music. It wasn't the only issue. It was kinda hard to promote, as their gigs were met with booing, especially that the band was dressed in pentagrams and corpse painting (yes yes, Black Metal did not invent it, dear Zoomers, it only wanted to go back to the roots, to paraphrase Euronymous). The drummer committed suicide and appeared on only one song on "Envoy of Death". The album itself received such a negative reaction that the label forbid the band from using the name "Sarcofagus", and their next, more motorbike album was released as Kimmo Kuusniemi Band.

The band eventually returned to give themselves a proper sendoff and recorded a fourth album, with a woman on vocals, which was more Power-ish, and they also re-recorded their old hits, after they called it a day again. It's interesting how almost every band from the '80 had a desire to come back from the grave. There is some justice in it, I'll give them that.

"Envoy of Death" is mainly an album filled with Black Sabbath riffs. We have slow crawlers, as well as that early Groove, so characteristic for Sabbaths. We also get keys and other effects, creating a spacey atmosphere. In some way, I could call it a rookie attempt at Prog Rock. We also get mr satan and devillish vocals, albeit from today's perspective, they might sound funny. There's some experiments as well, kinda in the way of The Residents (click click, don't be a loser), along with backmasking (is there anything more satanic?). Concept-wise, the album is focused on telling the story of 6 people, who met their demise. I really do recommend their lyrics, they are surprisingly good. They weren't native english speakers, but they managed to sound serious. It's also worth notice the egyptian theme of the cover. It touches the psychostasia, the mythical test of weighing the soul. If the heart was heavier than a feather, it was thrown to the crocodiles, and the soul was condemnded for eternity.

To love Sarcofagus, it's mandatory to listen to it more than once. It's very possible during your first attempt you might laugh at me, and my opinions. But the truth is, that if you listen to it non-stop, at some point the music will become really catchy. You know what people say, they laught at you at first, and ultimately you win. As once the music gets a grasp on you, it won't release you from its grip. For X-Mas i certainly recommend going back to the roots, as without understanding the basics, there's no point in creating the future. What's more important is that this is the best proof (after Polish scene with ours TSA, Kat, Turbo) that the world doesn't always revolve around the anglosaxon countries, and the rest of the world has something to say as well. And in case of Sarcofagus, it can sometimes exceed the expectations. But it remains nearly universal, that each Metal band, no matter the country it was from, had to face numerous problems, and lack of understanding.

* High Roller has a pretty smart business model - re-releasing classics like Destruction, Angel Dust, Voivod, Exumer, Assassin, Protector, etc. It's obvious that it's going to sell in high amounts.