Finnish thrash metal band Kamala is releasing new music after a long time, as today the song “Sota sisällä” (The War Inside) has been released on music services.

Singer-guitarist Karita Kivioja explains the background of the song:
“The song was inspired by the Finnish Civil War events on 1918. We visited the memorial of the Dragsvik prison camp in Tammisaari during our summer holiday in 2018 and I stayed to read the names of the dead prisoners, the children, in the largest mass grave in Finland. The grave was the final resting place of 3 100 prisoners who had died of starvation and epidemics, near the barracks area. One story was particularly poignant: a 17-year-old boy from Ostrobothnia, whose parents came all the way to Tammisaari to bring him food, but the guards would not let the prisoners who had lost the war feed their children, so the boy died in a concentration camp. And these names are on the memorial in plain sight. The Civil War tore this country to shreds and made ordinary Finns into victims as well as torturers and murderers.

This stopped, shocked and disgusted. The lyrics of the song were born from stories passed down through the family and the shock of prison camp hell. Also mixed into the lyrics were experiences of the hell inside the head and the hell in modern society called homes. Acts of the sick human mind against others, both because of the prevailing environment and because of mental breakdown.”

The song, which had been ready for some time now, took on a whole new meaning in the spring of 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine: “As a teenager in the 90s, I never thought I would see two European countries at war with each other. Less than 1000 km away, all the horrors of war are suddenly happening all over again. Horrors that should have been consigned to history” Karita continues.

Listen to the single on music services (Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal etc): https://push.fm/fl/kamala-sotasisalla

• ISRC: FI3FC2489001
• Lyrics & Composition. Karita Kivioja
• Artwork: Jani Kaunisto

In late 2023, the band entered the SN-audio studio in Jyväskylä, Finland to record the song. The lyrics and vocal style went through quite a mill in the studio, including the appearance of Putin’s face in front of Karita’s face in the vocal booth. When the singer felt like the embodiment of the spirit of Rocky Balboa when she screamed, we started to get close to the final sound.

The music video was shot with Jaakko Manninen on December 22nd 2023. As is typical of this production, the video which uses only natural light, was perfect for shooting on the darkest day of the year. The video’s director and cinematographer Jaakko Manninen found this to be the perfect choice, as there was simply no time to waste. The final production took almost a year, but now the song is available for everyone to listen to! 

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