Shred: Herra Ylppö & Ihmiset - Mies ja Nainen

1. Särö 
2. Mies Murtuu 
3. Matador 
4. Keksiyö 
5. Ikuiset  
6. Paula Puree  
7. Se Seurustelee  
8. Mustat Hevoset 
9. Mies ja Nainen 
10. Rautavaara Rules 
11. Öitä

When Ihmiset released their debut album Sata Vuotta (Hundred Years) in 2008, the best record of the year was released in January. When Ihmiset released their second album Pojat Ei Tanssi (Boys Don’t Dance) in 2010, the best record of the year was also released in January. So now when they’re releasing their third record in January 2012, is the best record once again released in January? Let’s find out.

A Man and a Woman. That’s basically the only topic Herra Ylppö (Herra = Mister) has ever sung about in his songs for his so called solo project band Ihmiset. The other group Ylppö is part of, Maj Karma, gets some other lyrical content besides the usual relationship twaddle, but the message is still mainly the same with some variations. If you can take all this emotion-rich content and even like it (not to mention understand Finnish language), the music of these bands can really speak to you lyrically. At least it has spoken to me like this in the past, but in the case of Mies ja Nainen I was first uncertain. I have heard all this before, why should I be enthusiastic about it again? In the end I came to a conclusion that this is Ylppö’s world and he may have wanted to form some kind of trilogy with these three records. In the future however, Ylppö must come up with something else because the relationship fountain has now been depleted.

This is an international blog, so how would a foreigner hear this record? Instrumentally everything is fine. First song Särö (Crack, but not drug crack) starts with a simple echoing piano riff, hitting drums and recognizable Hamid Moeini guitars. As a fan I’m thinking immediately that yes, this is exactly what I’ve expected the record to sound like. Matador exhibits some Spanish bull fighting pipes and CMX-like guitar riffs in the beginning while Mustat Hevoset (Black Horses) is bright guitar pop. The whole sound of the album is very radio friendly and most songs are in single length. Alternative, punk and metal aspects are far and between. As the album progresses many things start becoming clearer. The songs on Mies ja Nainen don’t hold the candle to that of the previous record's, but while the other two albums severely lacked coherence, Mies ja Nainen has plenty of it.

Originally this was supposed to be a double album with “Mies” being the energetic rock record while “Nainen” would focus on more settled and gentle songs. What happened in the end was that the band decided to make one good album instead of two mediocre ones and you can hear this compromise on the finished record. Some songs sound like they came straight from the rock record; some from the gentle record and others are a good merge of the two. It’s the songs “in the middle” that clue these two different sounds together to make an eloquent listening experience.

This is a good record and it fixes the issues Ihmiset has had in the past, but emerges some new problems. What is missing here too much is that trembling feeling that ”this song is freaking great”. The band was able to achieve this feeling in the past because they favored variability over coherence, so it seems that in the case of this band the other seems to come at the price of another. This is a shame as the band spent the entire year making this album and the finished product in some ways feels less than what they aimed for or at least less than what the audience was expecting it to be. Even the graphics in the CD-case are almost exactly the same as that of the previous album’s.

All the songs on Mies ja Nainen are good, some very good, but that's about it. The record is missing the edge this band had in the past. The sound is sleek and easy, unchallenging. Only the last song Öitä [translated (Good) Night] makes an exception. On the plus side though the band plays excellent as usual and the album is convincingly mixed and mastered.

Lastly to answer the big question, no, this most likely won't be the best record of the year. But I do have to admit that I have been very hard on this album in this review. Mies ja Nainen is exactly the kind of a record Ihmiset wanted to make this time. They were set to make a great commercial Finnish rock album and Mies ja Nainen embodies just that. I think that Ylppö fans will be pleased though that Maj Karma is coming back, hopefully next January.