{mosimage}Among all the bands in the current Finnish
music scene, Liekki is quite unlike anybody else. On this album, their fourth,
they combine elements of folk pop, progressive rock and even old school heavy
metal, and spice it up with cryptic lyrics and a somewhat nerdy image. If that
isn’t a unique and interesting concept, I don’t know what is.
Liekki
is pretty much the band of Janne Kuusela, the group’s
singer/guitarist/songwriter, although the rest of the four-piece do a very good
job each on their own field. Kuusela’s songs are full of rural mysticism, and
his lyrics, obscure and poetic, complement them beautifully. His singing and
guitar playing has also improved a lot since the early days of the band.
At
over 75 minutes, Kalliot Leikkaa is definitely too long, but then again, being
reasonable has never been one of the progressive bands’ strengths. As a whole,
one big piece of work, it doesn’t really work as well as it should, but there
are plenty of very good individual songs.
Rating 3/5