Äpäre is Ajattara’s 4 album, but I don’t think many people have ever heard of this band before. Ajattara is some kind of Treegost. In Finland, their homebase, Ajattara is quiet popular. The vocalist Ruoja is actually the same person as Pasi Koskinen, the former vocalist of Amorphis.

But can you expect the same kind of music as Amorphis? Not at all. Ajattara plays very dark midtempo  blackish /doomy metal. Allthough the lyrics are all in Finnish, it is very easy to tell their lyrics are very sinister.

The intro of the 1^st song begins with some kind of electro tune, I really hoped they wouldn’t changed their style, but after 18 seconds Ajattara is on the loose and starts playing like they always did.

Alltough the songs are mostly midtempo (no blastbeats on this one!) this record has some faster passages than the albums before. What I really like about Ajattara is the mix of the extreme sinister sphere and the usage over groove. This is really a record which has to be played extremely loud so the neighbours can feel the pumping sound as well. The music is actually quiet simple, no solo’s, no unexpected turns. The sound is very clear, and very heavy. The usage of keyboards give the sinister sphere an extra touch. 

I don’t sing a lot (lucky for you), mostly because I can’t sing, and because I don’t know the lyrics. Well Ajattara makes me want to scream along when this record is in my cd-player, but unfortunately I cannot understand a word what they say. Ruoja’s vocals are so damn full of anger, I love it. He screams with so much passion.

It is very hard for me to compare Ajattara with other bands, like I said, this really doesn’t sound like Amorphis, but there is not one band that sounds like Ajattara that I am aware of.

So if you are a into something new and really sinister, Äpere is the album for you. It surely passed the headbangtest. This album can be played at all times, when you feel like crap it gives you the feeling you can handle everything, when you feel great it makes you feel godlike and want to smash everything in your room. I think you get the point…. So run to the store and buy this damn good piece of art. The only minus of this ‘fulllength album’ is that after 32:22 minutes the party is over, how much do I appreciate the repeat function of the cd-player.