musicAddicted

Imagine Sunn O))) meeting A Place To Bury Strangers in hell and deciding to make a industrial techno record. The result would be no more unsettling and brutal than Life (… It Eats You Up) (out on Editions Mego), new album by Mika Vainio. Surprisingly, he has abandoned his simple-named moniker Ø and releases this fresh smack-in-your-face under his own name. The main difference between his older material and Life is Vainio’s re-invented passion for grinding and reverberated guitar which is the core element of almost hour of new music.

Mining is the most up-beat song on the entire album, reminding Vainio’s techno-oriented Ø and earlier work of Pansonic, his much-acclaimed project with Ilpo Väisänen. Going further with resemblances, the combination of mechanic, inhuman beats with electrified cutting sound of guitar brings to mind Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails. The industrial wail of guitar which wails like a grinding of a metal combined with a sound of chains beating into each other. What is more striking is the cold exactness and persistence of the basic beat which doesn’t change for the entire Mining. Frequencies change, the intensity of grinding and sawing modifies, but the underlining beat stays forever in its eternally chilly form. This is a heavy stuff Mika Vainio feeds us with, but the odd pain and uneasiness of listening to it repeatedly morphs into a weird pleasure. Delving deeper into Life (…It Eats You Up) rewards the listener’s patience with unimaginable sounds’ installations and combinations of industrial noise with brutal smartness. This album is Mika Vainio’s another win.