when mentioning humppa recently, one band which appeared magically in my head was the finnish band eläkeläiset (the pensioners). somewhat very popular among openbsd developers and strange party folk, they cover pop, rock and metal songs in their unique humppa style.

first, let me start with a europe (hard rock) cover of their famous song the final countdown:

the second one is a two unlimited (eurodance) cover, if you remember their song no limits from my childhood:

the third is a children of bodom (melodic death metal) cover, of their song hate me!.

finally, here’s a recording of a live performance of a billy idol (punk rock) song, dancing with myself:

eläkeläiset is mostly a live band, and it’s funny to watch them on the stage, getting drunk, talking crap, making music, and having fun with everyone around.

today i want to write about the 3rd and the mortal. well, at least about their beginning, since i don’t really know their work after kari rueslåtten left. their early music is rather doomy, while mostly very calm, and with folk influences. well. i guess i won’t write that much, as their music expresses more than 10.000 words. all the following songs are from their first album, tears laid in earth, and one from its preceeding ep, sorrow. these are their only two releases kari was involved in.

finally, here’s an unofficial, but nice video:

the album tears laid on earth is one of the very few which i deliberately bought a second time without a specific reason, to keep it until i can give it to someone worth it. that moment came one a half years ago.

a metal band i learned about a long time ago is nightwish. until their recent lineup change, one of their characteristics was their singer tarja turunen, who contributed her opera voice to the symphonic power metal composed by tuomas holopainen. let me start with elvenpath, the powerful opener of their first album, angels fall first:

the next song i want to present is lappi, also from their first album. on the album, it is split up into four pieces, but this video contains all of them. lappi, naming the finnish part of lapland, is a beautiful, calm audio journey through the vast lapland. the lyrics can be read here.

the third song is from their second album oceanborn. it’s a fast, instrumental folk song, perfect for dancing to it. i really love it.

finally, the last piece is from their last album with tarja, once. its a nice mix of orchestra and symphonic power metal. it is, as the name indicates, a love song.

these songs are not exactly typical for nightwish, except the frist ones for their first two albums maybe. doesn’t mean the others are bad, but you can also listen to them on the radio, so i’d rather present some more (in my opinion) interesting pieces.

the black league is a finnish band founded by the ex-sentenced singer taneli jarva. they started as a doom metal act, and shifted more and more in the direction of a mixture of metal and rock’n'roll.
their first album, ichor, is the the black league album i like most – probably because it’s their doomiest one, and it contains my most favourite song: ozymandias, a song dedicated to the poem ozymandias by percy bysshe shelley (his wife wrote frankenstein):

i met a traveller from an antique land
who said: two vast and trunkless legs of stone
stand in the desert. near them, on the sand,
half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
tell that its sculptor well those passions read
which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
and on the pedestal these words appear:
‘my name is ozymandias, king of kings:
look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
nothing beside remains. round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
the lone and level sands stretch far away.

the song is slow, dark, most of it being rather calm, while the recitation of the spoken words is heavy, powerful:

another song from that album i like a lot is night on earth (not related to the movie of the same name by jim jarmusch, which i also like a lot).

a third song from the album is winter wind sings, a dark balad encompanied with a strange video… “when you cry winter winds sing straight to my heart…”

finally, here’s a newer piece of the band, featured on their homepage at some point. it’s a somewhat ironic video about a concert which is not the biggest success. see for yourself:

an act i really like a lot is the finnish cello metal band apocalyptica. they started as a group of four cellists, plugging their cellos into an amplifier, covering metallica songs. after some time they started composing own songs, and later they added drums to their songs and had more and more songs with vocals. (i prefer the ones without vocals though, in most cases, and sometimes the drums also are annoying. but well…) so, as a good start, here’s a live version of harmageddon, the first song composed by apocalyptica themselves:

one of my most favourite songs is path. since i already presented it on spielwiese, let me present a version with vocals by sandra nasić (the singer of the guano apes) here. it’s also a video, so if you want to see it, please click the title or into the window to have it in a larger window:

i personally prefer the version without vocals, and also the video of that version is very cool. watch it on spielwiese if you’re interested. another nice video is a live version of hall of the mountain king, a classical “piece of norwegian black metal”, originally composed by edvard grieg.

the first album featuring drums was reflection. here’s a live version of the track toreador ii from that album. i wanted to include a studio version, but i didn’t found one at youtube which was available here:

finally, here’s a song from their newest album, 7th symphony: