Band: The Final Harvest
Title: The End
Label: Cyclone Empire
Distribution: Sure Shot Worx
Release date: 16/10/2009
Review: CD

The Final Harvest are a pretty young formation from Lahti, Finland, formed in winter 2007-2008 by Tuomas Saukkonen. In their home country they gained a modest popularity because of their strong live performances (among which gigs at renowned festivals as Tuska Open Air and Nummirock, and a supporting tour with Napalm Death) and The End, the band’s debut full length, will make the band known outside Finland too. …With gratitude to the excellent German label Cyclone Empire, of course, whom the band signed to recently.

The End was recorded by Tuomas Saukkonen (drums, production, music and lyrics; known from Black Sun Aeon, Before The Dawn, Bonegrinder, Sinamore and many other bands), Casket-members Ville Rutanen (v) and Eero Silvonen (g), and bass player Risto Roine (of Burning Empire-fame) at Manu Audio by Juho Räihä, while the mix was done at Villvox by Ari Laurilla, and the mastering was taken care of by Mika Jussila at the famous Finnvox Studio. And the result, well, is a bloody smasher!

The album, lasting for thirty seven minutes, stands for a slightly groovy and melodic yet intense and pounding form of Thrash Metal with a subtle Death Metal edge. The goal is not to become Earth’s fastest band, but it seems the band wants to create a sharp, raw and dark form of Thrash excellence, translating Finland’s cold winters into a sonic soundtrack. And The Final Harvest succeeded to record such a sinister and oppressing cohesion of Thrash-hymns. The tempo varies a lot, and both rhythm and atmosphere are overwhelming, powerful and rather oppressing. The individual performances are superb, and at the same time the whole sounds as if the members were playing together for years. I guess The Final Harvest might be one of the best bands from Finland that knows how to combine brutality with melody in an almost perfect symbiosis, and therefore this album must be one of the strongest 2009-Thrash-releases at the very end of that very same year.

Oh yes, for the interested ones: the track “Bloodgod” comes with a video clip, to be seen on that ‘joe-tjoeb’-thing: youtube.com/watch?v=uR3SWGy49rs.

85/100

Ivan Tibos.