The Finnish violent pop band stay true to who they are on album #4
Eurovision fans will remember Blind Channel's #6 place in the 2021 contest. The violent pop band have been well known on the Finnish rock scene for years, but after their success at Eurovision, album number 4 is a move to bring the band to a wider audience.
This album is a bit of a slow burn and the more time you spend with it, the more it becomes like your favourite comfy band t shirt. Album opener 'Opinions' is just catchy enough to drag you into the sick and dangerous lifestyle, but does feel as though it has vibe of a mid-point track. Their anarchistic and anthemic Eurovision entry 'Dark side', would have probably made a better choice. Despite the possible early misstep, from here on 'Lifestyles of the Sick and Dangerous' gallops like the angsty post-hardcore album that you want it to be. With influences from Limp Bizkit, Bring Me The Horizon and Good Charlotte, this is 2000s Nu metal reworked for the social media hungry, post covid crowd. The same teen anxieties, frustrations and feelings of alienation are present, but so are lyrics of strength and self-empowerment.
Although their music has a younger flavour, this is a band that has been around since 2013, so this isn't their first time at the rodeo, and it shows. There is confidence in their music, but also bitterness. This is not a band that has the rose-tinted gloss of signing a record deal, this is a band who have toiled, through blood and sweat and tears to get where they are. 'We Are No Saints' is perhaps a cautionary tale about the influencers' hold over society and worshipping false idols. For a band so early in their career to be spitting blood on 'Glory For The Greedy' about the music biz, is unusual, but as 'Thank You For The Pain' reminds us “it took me 8 years to become an overnight success” they must have been burnt.
'Bad Idea' is one of the strongest offerings on the album. It's the closest thing to a ballad and shows that the band are not all fierce middle finger raisers. 'Autopsy' has flavours of Justin Timberlake falsetto, with the shoe-gazing anger that comes from letting emotion spill out from every orifice.
There are moments of brutal honesty on this album and it's a record where the band stay true to who they are.