WEEK 169 – KALMAH

My HeadBangers welcome from Oulu, Finland, the melodic death metal band:

KALMAH

“Seventh Swamphony”

“Blood Ran Cold”

HeadBangers can you hear the difference in the sound between the Nordic metal and other parts of the world.  There is a difference, even between Finnish and Swedish.  If you listen long enough to different bands you will hear it.  

Let’s look at some bio on Kalmah:

Kalmah was formed in 1998.  In less than a year after its formation, Kalmah was signed by Spinefarm Records.  The word “kalmah” is Karelian and could be translated as “to the grave” or “to the death”.  

Here’s a little history:

In 1991, Pekka Kokko and Petri Sankala founded the metal band Ancestor. After Ancestor had recorded two demos, Antti Kokko joined the band as lead guitarist. In 1998, after five demos, Ancestor disbanded and Kalmah formed. The new band consisted of Pekka Kokko performing vocals and guitar, Antti Kokko on lead guitar, Pasi Hiltula on keyboards, Altti Veteläinen on bass, and Petri Sankala on drums.

Kalmah began to write songs for a promotional CD entitled Svieri Obraza. With this demo, they acquired a recording contract with Spinefarm Records and headed to Tico-Tico Studios to record their debut album, Swamplord which was released in 2000.

By November 2001, they returned to Tico-Tico Studios to record their second studio album, They Will Return. By this time, Veteläinen and Sankala were replaced by Timo Lehtinen on bass and Janne Kusmin on drums, respectively. In 2002, Kalmah played shows in Finland and at Wacken Open Air. In February 2003, they recorded their third studio album, Swampsong. In 2004, keyboardist Pasi Hiltula left and was replaced by Marco Sneck. The band released The Black Waltz in 2006 and For the Revolution in 2008. Kalmah toured in Canada and Finland to promote the latter album.  After more gigs than ever in Kalmah’s history the band begun writing new material for the next swamp masterpiece. This time it was all about inspiration as with the previous albums. From the very first songs old speed and thrash metal influences pushed through. 

So as you can see, just like with any band there were lots of changes in band members.

In  2010 the 6th album “12 Gauge” was released. 9 new songs spreading Kalmah trademark “Swamp Metal” all over the world. After successful Canada tour and release band got first chance to spread the message on big summer festivals in Europe. Such festivals like Metalcamp and Summerbreeze are known to every metalhead. The album itself was a success. Band gained more fans than ever.

Year 2012 was time for changes. Marco step aside and Veli-Matti Kananen stepped in. It was time to evaluate what we have done and what we deep in our music veins want to do next. The first song at the rehearsals “Seventh Swamphony” was the pacemaker. With new angle, not so straight-forward structure, orchestrations etc. we were turned on. We took our time rehearsing, re-thinking, evaluating new material. And it was sure worth it – or maybe we are getting old… Nevertheless we felt strong again entering studio in the beginning of 2013.

Recordings at Tico-Tico studios went smoothly as always. This time we had the chance to try world-class mixing/mastering wizard Jens Bogren and we sure did. We were excited from the very moment and very pleased with the end result. “Seventh Swamphony” – the 7th studio album from Kalmah is now waiting for the release 14.6.

After five years with all personal duties like building a house and moving to Helsinki area caused a longer break in recordings as usual. During those years new continents where marked to our live map and e.g. Canada was toured from east to west. Nevertheless the new material already started to take its form after Seventh Swamphony but not until three years later it was time to push it up and start actually wrap it up.

Within the last year inspiration gave its most and all in all 10 new Kalmah songs were arranged together within the band as always. This time recordings were spread all over. Drums were recorded at Sonic-Pump studio and bass were recorded at Soundwell Studio in Helsinki area. Guitars, vocals and keys were recorded at the good old Tico-Tico studios at Kemi. This time we wanted to be back at our roots and let Ahti Kortelainen do the mixing as well. Album was mastered at Chartmakers by Svante Forsbäck. All in all it took about half a year and little listening breaks in between made the whole process smooth.

So here we are almost 20 years later after Swamplord standing stronger than ever with Palo.

That’s a lot of history my HeadBangers, but as you can see like they said after 20 years they are still here stronger than ever.

Let’s meet these Swamplords, run your mouse over the pics for their names:

Well my HeadBangers what do you thing?  I think they are great. Check them out they’re on all the social media, I think you will like them as much as I do.  Finland has some great bands, they are the heart of metal.

That’s it for this week.  Join me next week for another band and another song.  In the meantime don’t stand to close to the fire if you can’t handle the burn…..