KILLED BY FINNISH HARDCORE!

As we all know,punk music is divided into hundreds of sub-genres, we’ve got hc punk, crust punk, etc. Also some countries or regions have a distinctive sound like latin punk, deutche punk and even greek punk! Each of them has something special that you can’t find in any other scene, sure there are bands that incorporated these sounds but none of them has the real shit! That said, lets take a closer look to finnish hc punk from the 80’s till now!
My first finnish hc record was Kaaos-Totalineen Kaaos LP which is actually a compilation of various Kaaos releases, mostly older compilation tracks and long-out-of-print ep’s.
I got that record from a show and I was very eager to spin it on my turntable as soon as I can! I head home just after the show and play it with no second thought, what came out of the speakers was nothing like I’ve heard before! It was raw, relentless and took no prisoners!
Chaotic guitars, angry as fuck vocals, drums that sounded like hitting your mothers pots and last but not least, the raging bass! The next day I begun my quest for more finnish hc bands. I realised that 99% of the 80’s finnish bands had more or less the same sound which made me wonder if there’s a reason for that. Just some weeks later I read an interview with Kuolema and Riistetyt in Maximum r’n’r and I somehow related the fact that Finland in the 80’s wasn’t the best place to be as a teenager! Apart from the gloomy weather and the large quantities of alcohol consumed from the young punks, the educational system was shitty, the government fucked things up all the time, police brutally attacked and mocked the punks and other minorities and there was nothing to do or place to fit in as a youngster! Plus don’t forget it’s the 80’s we’re talking about, that means the cold war was at its peak, the threat of a nuclear holocaust was not so far away! All that and of course bands like Discharge, The Exploited and Chaos UK lit the flame for the young finnish punks.
The lyric themes of these bands reflected to the finnish youth and made them feel futurless, which was true considering the times! All this rage and anguish translated to what we, nowadays, call finnish hc!
Of course the feeling, the sound and the hopelesness inspired and still inspires many generations of finnish bands (and not only), and the best thing is that each new band takes it one step further! Take Kieltolaki for example, it’s all there, the angry vocals, the chaotic everything’s-falling-apart recordings and the fuck you attitude!
These are the reasons I love finnish hc, it’s true and it comes from the heart, it’s all the shitty things happening in the world every single fuckin’ day translated in to music. To me it’s all about the feeling and making something out of nothing!

Dedicated to all the raw punx out there, keep it up fuckers!

-Bak