I can’t say that I have been a Kalmah fan for long. Initially, I dismissed them because of their similarities to Children of Bodom, which had been a formative act for me. In my mind, Kalmah just couldn’t compare and the lack of guitar theatrics (and ballsy attitude, in parts) was impossible for me to overcome. It was only during a short stint with a local melodeath band – which ultimately ended up fruitless, for many reasons – that I decided to reevaluate my bias towards the genre and gave Kalmah another chance. Frankly, Kalmah is just power metal without all the cringe. Songs are simple, but well crafted and carry a certain pathos that makes them work and there is no horrible sqeaky clean tenor to ruin the enjoyment. As with many acts, only the early material for Kalmah appears to be essential and as someone who hasn’t heard every single Kalmah record, it is tough to place this self-titled record within their discography. I can say that on a level of quality, this doesn’t quite deserve the self-titled status – as so often, this is not their best record. On a level of how representative it is, the album might as well deserve the title, though.
Kalmah have never strayed far from the path that they’ve chosen and they deliver the usual cheese tinted leadfest. Something I appreciate heavily about the album is how Kalmah do not sacrifice grit for wider marketing appeal, even if I am unsure if this is a choice or a concern regarding production budget. Kalmah feels dirty and even messy at times, reminding me of melodeath acts that play a much rougher and abrasive style than Kalmah do. In the opening track in particular there are melodic leads that don’t manage to fully push the trem picked aggression to the background and it is a more aggressive opening than is to be expected from an act like this. The band does commit to some cheese later on, though. “No Words Sad Enough” serves up some of the most stereotypical Scandinavian sadness that you could imagine, ripe with cello, sampled piano, flute and spoken word. It succeeds at breaking up the album stylistically, but I question how necessary this is compared to just trimming off the fat and having a leaner album. The song doesn’t amount to much and is structurally too linear to be an essential inclusion, even though it has a very tasteful solo section for the guitar. Concerning pacing, the album would play much better if it ended after “Red and Black”, incidentally one of the best cuts of the album as well. You could do worse than Kalmah‘s usual in 2023, but I would still recommend digging into their early work instead – Kalmah have done better than their usual and are always worth a revisit.
