Live report by Katri (Numento)

Concentrated Metal Party 2022 mosh-started the metal summer of Helsinki, the capital city of Finland – also known as the country of thousand lakes – but even more so for thousands of great metal bands! The concept of event was specially tailored for Tiivistämö venue located in Suvilahti area where the legendary Tuska open air metal festival takes place every summer.

This year’s Concentrated Metal Party presented four rising metal bands from different sub genres: thrash & roll group MANGLED HANDS, thrash monsters MANIAC ABDUCTOR, extreme metal band ANZILLU and IA which crowned the night with their impressive shamanic metal show.

The vocalist of Numento and ex-singer of Keoma, Katri, honored Concentrated Metal Party as the hostess and gave her very personal review of the event exclusively for Metal Shock Finland:

From this evening’s bands, I had only heard the two first ones, MANGLED HANDS and MANIAC ABDUCTOR, kind of going to the same genre of thrash metal. The two latter ones for the evening were completely new to me and unfortunately as I was really busy with other work stuff before this night, I decided just to go with the flow and let them surprise me! It was the first time for me ever to work as the announcer for the bands and I have to say, I really had fun! I tried to interview every band at the backstage so that I would be able to tell something interesting about each of them to the audience. We had fun discussions with the band members and I really liked getting to know new people as well as seeing some of my old friends.

The venue itself was also new to me although the place, Tiivistämö, has been there for few years. Probably because of covid-19, venues were a bit “forgotten” sadly but I really liked this place! Same industrial yet coastal environment as the famous Tuska-festival, cozy and boheme bar downstairs and a good-sized stage as well as enough space for proper mosh pits — what’s not to like! Also easy to get there by public transport.

Photo credits:

• Mangled Hands photos by Atte Asikainen
• Anzillu, IA and Maniac Abductor photos by Petri Sara Photography

MANGLED HANDS

The evening was opened by a local thrash&roll-gang Mangled Hands. These guys are my friends so I’m a bit biased to comment their show objectively but let’s still say: not every band plays as tightly as these guys and I’m always impressed by their music. They keep evolving musically and as a prog metal musician myself, I really enjoyed the songs that have a lot of different parts in them, and they also have catchy choruses which is always nice. Definitely a tight start for the evening although I felt a bit sad that the audience was rather scarce during the first part of the evening. Mangled Hands is going to release their debut album later this year and I’d say I’m definitely looking forward to that!

MANIAC ABDUCTOR

Having seen these guys the day before as well at On the Rocks competing for a slot at Tuska along with Numento and few other bands, they seemed more relaxed and more confident here at the Concentrated Metal Party. They came all the way from Joensuu, Eastern Finland, and I really enjoyed their set. It was solid, professional, seemed confident yet their music had some fresh influences that sounded interesting even to a person who doesn’t listen to a lot of thrash metal on her free time 😉 I think thrash metal really works better live and this was another proof of this. You could see that these guys have played together for a pretty long time and they have already released their sophomore album Damage Is Done through WormHoleDeath. As they said themselves — this music is a perfect match for a beer drinking kind of night! Almost immediately after they had started, I just couldn’t resist getting myself one 😉

ANZILLU

A sumerian word for “abomination” as their name, this group immediately impressed me with the fact that they had gotten a record deal after playing together only for three years. Also from their show, you could have never guessed they only had three gigs together before tonight. These guys were clearly professionals that had formed a new band and obviously, they know what they are doing. Their show was full of dangerous situations both on stage and in the crowd (moshpits), and I loved how they handled fixing a broken bass guitar strap that broke in the middle of a song. The bassist kept on playing but had to play while kind of squatting to be able to hold the bass on his knees. Surely felt uncomfortable although this bad ass guy didn’t show it to the audience. While repairing the strap after the song, one of the guitar players cracked a bunch of jokes to entertain the audience meanwhile. So in summary, I’m looking forward to their album as their music combined different flavours of extreme metal in an interesting way and in a way that, I think, suits the name of the band!

IA

From this group, I didn’t really know what to expect. They introduced themselves to me as “shaman metal”, and it kind of made me giggle at first. I was thinking something like Heilung or Finntroll or such, but this truly surprised me. I became really eager waiting for their gig after I saw their neon-colored/UV bodypaints that first reminded me a bit of the Turtles in “normal” room lighting. Well, even 3 nights after the gig, their song “Higher power from below” is still playing on repeat inside my head and I don’t know how to get rid of this earworm — do I need an exorcism of some sort to remove it?? They promised a trance for the audience and they also delivered it and the crowd (that had grown A LOT towards this gig) was mesmerized and super excited. Their music is kind of difficult to describe: low-tuned guitars with indeed shamanic chants, backing tracks with throat singing and jews harp and also some of electronic music. I don’t know exactly what they did but they did it well! The visuals were also impressive in the UV light and what could TOTALLY blow my mind at this sort of a gig would be to see the throat singing and “shamanic” instruments played LIVE.