Kalmah – 12 Gauge

Releasedate: 03-03-2010; Label: Spinefarm
By: Sabine van Gameren

Kalmah, a Finnish Melodic Death Metal band, formed in 1998. The band is up for their 6th studio release with “12 Gauge”.

The album starts with an interesting intro, quite calm and serene. The band got an aggressive side and yet it is not as up driven as it could have been. For those die hard Kalmah fans there might be little hick in here. Although the album is in line of what the band had been released before there are slight differences. The swamp is still there though! Tempo’s have been brought a little extra in speed with an occasional exception. Nevertheless they bring back the switches in the dominance. Sometimes it is the keys that run the song, sometimes it is the guitars, but never count out the drums that are a serious foundation of the music. The vocals tend to disappear a bit more to the background, bring the stress to the melodic side of their sound. In the production they reserved time for finding out how to make the sound bigger and full, which is an interesting decision. Choose have been made and it all seems to turn out quite well for the music. Overall the Kalmah stamp is over it, still and will always be. The band made another record that will please many fans, will this sixth album be a name maker for them is yet to question. The band have the qualities to be that band that many other bands write on their info sheets as influences or sounds likes.

Line Up:
Pekka Kokko – vocals, guitar
Antti Kokko – lead guitar
Marco Sneck – keyboards
Timo Lehtinen – bass guitar
Janne Kusmin – drums

Tracklist: 01. Rust Never Sleeps 02. One of Fail 03. Bullets Are Blind 04. Swampwar 05. Better Not To Tell 06. Hook The Monster 07. Godeye 08. 12 Gauge 09. Sacramentum

 
Links:
Kalmah Official