RoutaSielu is the most recent project from Tuomas Saukkonen who is actively also playing in Before the Dawn, Black Sun Aeon, Dawn of Solace and The Final Harvest.
If you remember my review of Tuska and my time in Finland you'll know that I saw these guys at one of the Tuska after parties and was totally blown away by their set even though I'd never heard a single song or even the bands name before. 'Pimeys' (Darkness in English) is the debut album from RoutaSielu (FrostSoul in English) and musically its some sort of atmospheric melodic metal with both clean and harsh vocals that are performed entirely in the Finnish language. I have to say its always interesting hearing music with non-English lyrics and especially since I'm finding myself missing Finland more and more each day I find comfort in hearing a band that sings in this strange language I've come to love.
Language aside, I think the thing that most folks will notice first is the overly melodic nature of this album. Lead guitarist Eero Silvonen and his rhythm partner Mikko Heikkilä are absolutely stunning throughout this record with tons of catchy folky influenced sounding riffs and impressive solos as well some hard hitting head banging parts too. There's also some softer acoustic parts, which are put to good use, especially the intro to, 'Soturi,' which is just beautiful.
The keyboard work of Saku Moilanen is mostly used as just backing ambiance and although, 'Kehtolaulu' and 'Alkusoitto' are opening and ending solo keyboard pieces to the album his presence only rarely takes the lead role on other songs.
I'd say the vocals are split about 50/50 on this album with Mikko's vocals appearing in the form of both whispers and cleanly sung lines while Tuomas' growled voice is used on all of the heavy parts of the album. Of course there's nothing negative I can say about them since Mikko's voice sounds great and Tuomas' growls are certainly not very harsh and seem perfectly suited to this sort of music.
As for favorites I can honestly say I enjoy the album as a whole greatly, but songs like, 'Enkeli,' 'M.E.V,' 'Kaipaus' and 'Soturi' make my day a little bit better after hearing them.
In the end, 'Pimeys' is quite an exciting debut album and I do hope the band has plans for more since they are definitely on the right path with this one.
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