Tuliterä | website | facebook | bandcamp |
Released on March 30, 2015 via Independent
It’s always difficult to review instrumental albums without reverting to clichéd metaphors and imagery and after all, wouldn’t those be subjective to taste and interpretation anyway? One person’s beautiful dreamscape is another’s boring life sucking drone and without the grounding of any lyrics it’s difficult to get a hang on what the actual meaning is about. There is always the song titles, but even then they can be either blatantly ridiculous efforts or simply too enigmatic.
So where does that leave us with Finnish band Tuliterä? Well, with their footing firmly in the space rock genre as all manner of shapes and sizes, riffs and synths runs are thrown at you, at least your imagery is of a more out there nature. Again it’s not that simple though and there is a shift towards more progressive sounds too as hints of Asian finery indulge themselves upon discordant riffs. It’s all very exciting and bombastic and this is only by the second track.
Essentially what you are looking for is not to be bored and Tuliterä win on all fronts here. From the slightly silly album cover to the more intense moments of free-form riff galloping, the band sound like they are having a ball. This works as it makes you have a ball too and care about what you are listening too. Tongue in cheek they may be, there is also a rather fantastic sense of musicianship happening too.
The intertwining instruments that make up Tuliterä present a band who are completely attuned to each other and whilst they may not have a curb on some of their more indulgent excesses such as over the top guitar widdling, it’s all delivered with great aplomb and even when it sounds like it is falling off the rails there is still a sense that they will pull it together.
There are worse albums out there than this and for lovers of progressive rock and space rock served up in instrumental doses then Tuliterä may just tickle your fancy. They may sound like a train out of control at times but that is part of the fun and as they careen down yet another avenue of musicianship you can’t help but jump on for the ride. Ridiculous, but great fun.
