Foredoomed / Savage Land @ Saaristobaari

Saaristobaari Turku, 23.2.2018 Finland

Before diving into the main course of the evening, a few sentences about warm-up band Savage Land. This Thrash Metal band from Turku describes old school Metallica and Megadeth joined with Lamb of God and COB as their musical influences. The band is fairly new, established beginning of 2016 and they have released one single “Break me” from their upcoming EP.  When it comes to the show itself played in Saaristobaari, the songs sounded for me a bit alike with no surprises, yet the performance was steadily “thrashing” throughout. Enjoyed listening their set and looking forward hearing what they’ll offer for thrash metal heads in the future.

Then to the main course of the evening. I originally happened to run up into Foredoomed‘s “Ordeal” sometime last autumn. This back in 2009 established band from Joensuu, Finland, sounded by first listening a fresh, unique, “ready package”. I was very surprised to find out that the album they had just released was their first. Before their gig in Turku, I had listened to their album many times and noticed by every listening bunch of new things. Due to this my expectations for their gig were very high.

In the end, there aren’t that many singers in the world who can sing pure tones as well as growl stylishly – not just anyone can be Tomi Joutsen. But for Atte Kymäläinen, Foredoomed’s singer-guitarist, there’s no need for trying to imitate someone else. Because there’s something magical about his pure voice that really touches your soul. It seemed it was piece of cake for him to play around and take turns between singing, growling and plucking those guitar riffs that eat into your brain.

Just as a ship’s captain, singer can’t him/herself take care of the whole show alone. The man behind the drums, Joel Henrik Kaplas was in a happy mood and played seemedly with passion while taking several times eye-contact to the audience. Asmo Jurvanen, the band’s 2nd guitarist and Eetu Kovapohja in bass, gave both a nice show with their headbanging and expressions.

The Foredoomed setlist from the Ordeal album: Origin (intro), Undawning, Search for tomorrow, Ghost Recurrence, Dualism, My Epigraph in Woe and Shade of the Darker Sun. When the show ended, the crowd yelled “we want more”. That was a clear demand for the future and a wider set. I highly recommend you to check out the Ordeal EP from Spotify and when ever possible in the future, do check out these guys live – they’ll totally blow your mind (in a good way) away.

Text & photo: Christa Kahras