It's Finnish and it's not Lordi, but it's really quite good
There must be something in the Scandinavian water. Peddlers of annoying novelty pop and famous for not much else. Pop quiz hotshots: Name someone famous from Finland that isn't a sportsperson. Well, Helsinki-based quartet Rubik might be the most famous Fins since...erm...Lordi?
Before you go to Wikipedia to have a look, their latest album "Solar" is well worth your attention. From the opening bars of the short, horned intro, it's apparent that this is competing in a short field for the most different but accessible album of 2011. Like a slightly less happy 'Boy Least Likely To' or a less psychotic Simian, there's clever and varied instrumentation throughout, with long pads on 'Towers Upon Towers' and even what I took to be a modern interpretation of a lute solo on 'Death March (in Octaves)'.
"Solar" is their third full-length release but the first to be officially released in the UK and it starts really strongly. Pacy drums, electronic tinges and elongated chords complement a beautiful vocal that drives opener 'World Around You' forward, without needing to say too much at all. And that's the main problem. The sweet, faux-falsetto throughout lapses into frankly incomprehensible in 'Crisis Meeting at the Lyceum', which sounds like it should be sound tracking a kids' TV programme. It's probably a bad thing if you have to check which language he's singing in.
One other thing needs to be mentioned about "Solar". The artwork is really well done with the lyric sheet written ornately and opening the CD, borrows a line from that opening track, asking you to 'Wave goodbye to the glory days and say hello to darkness.' It seems incongruous with the tone of the album's sound as there isn't too much darkness on it. It's a real effort by the band and label with the artwork and should be applauded.
So what would I like to see Rubik do next? Electro remixes and play in the UK. The former because their music seems to lend itself to some ambitious DJ adding to the strong foundation that's there and the latter because the amount of effort that's gone into the writing process is apparent and seeing how much has to be stripped away on stage would be fascinating, but then, I'm a geek. So geeky in fact, that I would have accepted the answer Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, who won a Nobel prize in 1945. Rubik won't do that with this effort but nonetheless deserve a lot of praise for the depth of "Solar", which had it been less predictable, would be a frontrunner for album of the year so far. Instead, it remains on the likeable side of eccentric and gives Finland a true place on the musical atlas.