During our efforts to keep on top of what’s new in Finland, we’ve come across CYAN KICKS. This four-piece is made up of Susanna Aleksandra (vocals), Niila Perkkiö (guitar), Leevi Erkkilä (bass, backing vocals), and Pietari Reijonen (drums). Releasing singles fairly consistently over the last year or so, it was time for these songs to all come together into an album, enigmatically called “I Don’t Love You,” which came out yesterday.
Firstly, this is definitely not an album for metalheads per se, but perhaps more for those fans of electronic metal or pop rock. It’s got 13 songs, which is more than usual these days, but the songs average about 3 minutes in length, thus keeping the album at a tight 41 minutes. Their catchy electronic sound and upbeat vibe is constantly delightful throughout the album, and there are still some heavy moments, keeping the album from treading into one-note realms.
If you’ve been following the band, singles “Feathers,” “Gasoline,” “Rockabye,” “Satellite,” “Tidal Wave,” “Heart,” and “Mistake” may all already be familiar to you, and since that’s half of the album right there, if you likes all or most of these songs (and really, why wouldn’t you?), there’s no denying that you’ll likely be happy to have them all in one tidy collection.
The rest of the album definitely keeps pace with these hits. I might’ve personally put something a touch more energetic in the first song slot, but opener “Endgame” nevertheless has some decent power to it. “Criminals” is the next new entity, though it sounds a bit too similar to some of the other singles. “Gravity” steps it up a bit though, with a heavier sound coupled with their signature electronic beats. “Riddle” is a bit on the slower side to allow for a little more dynamic ebb and flow of the overall album, while “Saint” is the one song that keeps escaping my notice on each listen-through. “Heart” is the kind of song that I could imagine would be full of passion live (unlike many ballads from this year) and I had to mention it because it has some of the sweetest vocals from Aleksandra. The slowest song on the album is likewise the title track, “I Don’t Love You,” which is beautiful and ambient. The album ends strongly with another familiar single “Rockabye,” thus wrapping things up nicely and leaving you kind of wishing it wasn’t over just yet.
“I Don’t Love You” is a lot of fun, uniform in sound but still diverse enough not to feel totally one-note. The main target group for this band is likely under 30 (aka not me), but nevertheless, even past that age range, there’s definitely something going on there that’s hard to place but nevertheless enjoyable to hear. The electronic sound is fresh to my ears (though I don’t listen to a lot of pop music in general) and the lyrics seem to have more depth than your average modern pop song, which is maybe the biggest seller (even if the target audience – as I said – is a fair bit under my own age). I’m very interested to see how these songs translate live, hopefully we’ll be able to attend their album release gig later this month!
Written by Bear Wiseman
Musicalypse, 2019
OV: 1644
Tracklist
- Endgame
- Tidal Wave
- Gasoline
- Criminals
- Gravity
- Satellite
- Riddle
- Feathers
- Saint
- Heart
- Mistake
- I Don’t Love You
- Rockabye
Label
Ranka Kustannus
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