‘Riivin’

Finnish folk-influenced black metal band HIIDENHAUTA is set to release their third studio album ‘Riivin’ on September 18th 2020 by Inverse Records. The third single and music video ‘Lettorikko’ is now available.

Such an incident once happened in Pielavesi; A few peasants hanged themselves in the middle of haymaking season, so at the same time from day to day such a miracle happened in the hay meadow that the wind took all the hay from two haystacks as it went. They rose so high that they were not visible at all after that. This left the impression in the meadow that at that windswept the devil went with his prey. In the gust, people believe that the souls of people who leave the world through suicide are flying.-Pielavesi, Finland

Singer-lyricist Tuomas says:“Lettorikko was one of the last songs on the album, composed by our bassist Henri. I had written various stories about the Devil in Finnish folklore for the other band members to see, from which Henri found this story told in Pielavesi about the peasants hanging themselves. Inspired by the story, the song was born pretty quickly and was immediately in its almost final form. I immediately began to write a text for the composition, which was also surprisingly effortless, as were the song melodies composed after the text. This song has perhaps the most folk spirit that the new album has more of, especially in Emma’s vocals, but also more natural than before. Lettorikko was easy to choose as the video and the single track: it has a lot of everything you can find on the album. Jerkka Perälä was chosen as the author of Lettorikko’s lyric video, who made a lyrical video for the song Hallan valta in connection with the last album. Jerkka had a very similar idea of the visuality of the song, which I had, so working and agreeing on the content of the video was very effortless. The video materials were filmed in the village of Anola, Nakkila.”

Hiidenhauta’s third album, “Riivin”, is most easily labeled as folk-influenced black metal, but above all it is a balanced ensemble of Finnish Devil which represents both humanity, mischief, but also an eternal will of revenge for those who do wrong. This album exudes the band’s ability to regenerate and transform. Once again, Hiidenhauta is like a story they created: earthy, raw, angry, but also sounding like the endless beauty of nature. On the record, the band takes another real leap into a new area where it tears and breaks, and just when it’s used to be still, it leaves again and looks for new trails to carry.

Listen to Lettorikko:
Youtube: https://youtu.be/EuQF7SsRZRY
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/32zIHMK
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/us/album/155544102
Tidal: https://listen.tidal.com/album/145619064
Apple Music: https://apple.co/2YCoswp

PRE-ORDER Riivin CD: https://bit.ly/2WhuHVy

PRE-SAVE Riivin album on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3ezxi3v

Watch a music video for first single Riidenlieko here: https://youtu.be/lW8fBqDconQ
Watch a music video for second single Leväkkö here: https://youtu.be/qI5BtObFTnI

Track list:

Riidenlieko
Lettorikko
Raate
Petäjä
Leväkkö
Halava
Yövilkka
Ahonoidanlukko
Harmio

Cover art by: Jamppa Lamminpää

Photo by: Jamppa Lamminpää

Finnish folk-influenced black metallers HIIDENHAUTA are set to release their third studio album ‘Riivin’ on September 18th 2020 by Inverse Records. The first single and music video Riidenlieko is released today.

Hiidenhauta began composing and lyricizing the third album in the summer of 2019, and in December of the same year, it marched into the studio with its backback full of the band’s best songs. Through a few twists and turns, the theme of the album eventually became “The Devil in Finnish folk tradition”, the discovery of which the band’s singer-lyricist Tuomas describes it:

“In the beginning, the idea was to make a theme album about gnomes and such creatures in Finnish folklore, and other perhaps more invisible characters. However, after reading books like “Myytillisiä tarinoita”, “Suomalainen piru” and “Olevaisen yöpuoli”, it was pretty clear that the theme of the album must be the Devil in the Finnish folklore, which at first glance may seem like a rather worn out subject more than the first thought about it. The Finnish Devil is versatile; it can be a moral guardian, vindictive, cruel, helpful, playful, humane, visible, invisible, and everything in between. It’s a concrete and at once strangely multi-level figure in folklore, and people’s experiences of the Devil have been mind-bogglingly realistic. And it must be remembered that the Devil of Finnish folklore is not even remotely related to the Devil of Christianity, and these should not be confused with each other.

The songs on the album were born really naturally without much pain. A few ideas come right from the aftermath of the previous album, but all the songs were put together between the summer and winter of 2019. Four of the songs are composed by our guitarist Otto, four by our bassist Henri, and I composed one song myself, as well as vocal melodies for each song. For the first time in the band’s history, it felt like the pieces really fell into place, and there was nothing too much at any point, and at no point at any point did the record-making have to make compromises that diminished the artistic value. This time the direction was completely common and the idea of the end result was clear and strong.”

Track list:
01. Riidenlieko
02. Lettorikko
03. Raate
04. Petäjä
05. Leväkkö
06. Halava
07. Yövilkka
08. Ahonoidanlukko
09. Harmio

Cover art by: Jamppa Lamminpää