Capacopter – Kings and Crowds
It’s best if you change your name! It works most efficiently if you change your hairstyle, get different clothes, and start speaking with a foreign accent! Joining a rock n’ roll group, ideally, is the same as being lowered into the Jordan River. You might come out all wet and muddy, but you’re not the same person as before. And, if you can’t see the advantage in all of that, you might just need to take on stamp collecting as a hobby instead.
Capacopter know all about the benefits of transforming yourself, of using an avalanche of sound to beam you to faraway places. And, what a stroke of luck it is that electric guitars are paired with a teleportation device. It used to be that you had to join the Circus or the Foreign Legion, and get enough people to confess that they’d seen you fall from a cliff. Now, all you need is a guitar, a record collection and the will to do it.
There ain’t no deserts in Germany. There’s just gloomy rains and trains that, yes, arrive on time. But that’s where Capacopter have gone to on their mighty stoner-rock fable of “Kings and Crowds.” Did they locate the members of Kyuss, sans Mr Homme, underneath one of those dunes? And, how on Earth did they manage to transport all that confidence and self-belief with them on the journey back? Some door has definitely been cracked open here ,and Capacopter have the crowbar to keep it from shutting.
Joonas Holmén + The Lossy Codecs – Vengeance as Purpose
The location of your birth is more often a burden than it is a blessing. Of course, there are those forced to suffer poverty, wars and endless tension. And, naturally, there are those whose talents are simply not appreciated fully in the place that they are and, so, must force a move. But, somewhere in the middle of this, there are also the rock bands from Finland forced to live up to stereotypes of old.
Now, I confess, other than Rovaniemi’s Santa and the three saunas to a man ratio, I’ve never been particularly charmed by Finland, and I fear that a lot of this has to do with its rock bands, majority of which are comprised long-haired individuals wearing funny hats and making believe that there used to be Vikings roaming around those endless forests of theirs. Worse still, traditionally, I’ve found that Finnish drummers, especially those of a power-metal persuasion, are a breed of rock n’ roll terrorism that neither threats nor diminishing ticket sales can stop.
But, wait! Through that nothingness, I can glimpse a hope. Joonas Holmén + The Lossy Codecs sound and look nothing like that. They’re cool. They’re clever. And whoever handled the percussion here would be too good to ever have to suffer the indignity of auditioning for Nightwish.
The Finnish Ministry of Culture ought to get on the line with this lot. They give the country a good name. “Vengeance as Purpose” by Joonas Holmén + The Lossy Codecs sounds a lot like James Iha getting his wish and getting Frank Black to sing in The Smashing Pumpkins. Besides, it’s a positive song, a recipe against typical Nordic melancholy. Strong effort!
