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DIVINE GRACE - Heeding Divinity
By
Chris Bruni
A magical flow of textures embedded in pure melancholy and soothing,
docile musical streams of wonders can purely describe this excellent
Finnish phenomenon. It all started in the beginning of 1993 under
the moniker of Morpheus, but as time passed so did their change
in musical direction. A mini-CD entitled Romantic Beatitude Of Faded
Dawn was then recorded that same year but not released until January
of 1996. Later on in the summer of the same year, their debut album,
Lumo, was unleashed on Avantgarde music. It was an album somber
in mood, dark and naturally depressing; nonetheless, it was a solid
gothic pleasure that could only come from Finland.
The new album, Supremature, is a fine and classy piece of musical
art. Taking a more rock-oriented direction, more down to earth and
simplified, this is the kind of album that, no matter how subtle
and mellow it may seem, can easily pull you within its magical realm.
Here is a band whose members' influences include bands like The
Beatles, The Doors, Deep Purple, Kiss, Metallica, Danzig, The Cure,
David Bowie, Black Sabbath, and Slayer. Not that Supremature sounds
like all these bands in one pot, but it shows the immense diversity
amongst the members. As Divine Grace consists of Sami Langsjo (guitars),
Ari Ala-Miekkaoja (guitars), Mikka Lappalainen (drums), the enchanting
vocals of Hanna Kalske, and Jukka Sillanpaa (bass/keyboards). I
asked Jukka about the certain tags that have been placed on the
band and where he thinks they stand within the scene.
"When the band started in 1993, the guys were very big fans
of the first gothic metal acts like Paradise Lost and their Gothic
album, My Dying Bride, Anathema... So 'cause of that, the first
MCD sounded very much of their influences. But when I joined the
band we started to go out from that category, just searching more
for our own style. When we then started to record Lumo, our style
changed step by step to that final style everyone can listen to
from Lumo. One big reason was also our decision to replace Jari
to Hanna as the lead vocalist. After releasing Lumo we got a lot
of response where we were being compared to 4AD [the British record
label – ed] bands, especially Cocteau Twins. Honestly speaking,
in our band there wasn't anybody that knew any of these bands. I
think Hanna listened to them after Lumo was released because she
was curious to hear what everyone was comparing us to. I then heard
some of the 4AD bands, but I hadn't found anything in common with
those bands. If I compare our new album to 4AD stuff...well, nowadays
we'd have more common with those bands, 'cause we have gone more
pop, still sounding very dark and melancholic.
"After Lumo we just wanted to make simpler and shorter songs,"
Jukka continues. "And that's true that our new songs sound
more pop than metal. Anyway, we did the songs for Lumo in 1994-95
and the songs on our new album were done in 1997-99, so many things
have changed after the Lumo sessions.
"To write good melodies is our main idea," says Jukka
about their writing process. "It's just the only reason for
us to do this music. Good melodies make music timeless and it isn't
so molded by trends. The most important thing for us is to make
the listener feel something deeper when he/she is listening to our
songs. So we don't care about the trends so much. The new music
and new trends haven't influenced our music because we have found
our own way to make music."
It will be interesting to see what crowds are attracted to Supremature.
"Well, personally I don't think about those things too much,"
Jukka replies. "We want to make our own things and if people
like it then it's just great. Okay, we were a little afraid about
our label's reaction when they first got the master tape of Supremature
to their hands. I even informed Roberto (Avantgarde godfather -
ed.) about our style changing. Anyway, that was unnecessary because
Roberto seems to like our new style very much. About the black/dark
metal crowd, yes, I have received a couple reviews from that side
too and they have liked our new material a lot, probably because
of its dark and melancholic base."
Supremature definitely sounds so much more personal than Lumo.
"Speaking of the lyrics, they are very personal thoughts of
Hanna. We cannot, and don't want to, comment on them because it's
just as great that Hanna really thinks personal things that she
wants to put on paper. Musically speaking, I agree with you 100%.
This album is much more personal... The themes are also very down
to earth and with Hanna's more personal touch they are bringing
us forward in telling people normal things.
"'Supremature' is a mixture of three different words -- 'supreme',
our band style in an ironic way, 'premature' again with the irony
because of the big delay in releasing it. We planned on completing
the whole album first time during Autumn '98, but because we wanted
to rearrange the songs again (which was an absolutely good decision),
our delay was a year. The third word of course is 'mature', 'cause
we think that this is a much more mature release than Lumo was."
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