Hammer of Hate is proud to present Sielunvihollinen’s highly anticipated fifth album, ‘Helvetinkone’, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
Formed in 2011 initially as a solo project, over the course of four albums and a handful of splits, demos, and EPs, Sielunvihollinen have come to be standard-bearers of pure ‘n’ proud Finnish Black Metal. While neither shying away from the spotlight nor intentionally cultivating an air of mystery, Sielunvihollinen’s catalog over the past decade has come to speak of itself – thoughtful songwriting, impassioned performances, a totality of form meeting content – and with their development into a full band unlike so many other Black Metal “projects,” they’ve also become a considerable force on the live front.
While they’ve no doubt been prolific in the number of EPs and splits they’ve released over that past decade-plus, Sielunvihollinen have fastidiously released a full-length every two years. Now, like clockwork, two years after the widely acclaimed Teloituskäsky comes their fifth album, ‘Helvetinkone’. Roughly translated into English as “Hell Machine,” Sielunvihollinen’s latest full-length is indeed a hellish affair, but one not without the band’s characteristically poignant melodicism. Carrying forward that deadly precision of its full-length predecessor ‘Helvetinkone’ cruises with a clarity of focus that simply heightens the heartstrings-pulling push of their anthemic songwriting. Indeed, the attack is squarely Black Metal – rough and rowdy at heart, “catchy” in the Finnish post-millennial tradition – but these eight anthems are ridiculously compact and contoured; not one single second is wasted, and the leads-forward emphasis has never been more striking. And whereas the aforementioned Teloituskäsky was Sielunvihollinen’s cleanest-recorded work to date, it was a sea-change that only benefited the band’s increasingly compact nature; with ‘Helvetinkone’, it makes perfect sense, and lends a strangely sparkling character to their quintessential Finnish filth. Iron fists lined with velvet, and poised to punch you in the fucking face!
Once again presenting authentic ’90s classicism whilst trampling the graves of the present, Sielunvihollinen stand firm in the upper echelons of international Black Metal with ‘Helvetinkone’!
More info: Sielunvihollinen; Hammer of Hate Records;