CMX: a brief biography
CMX remains one of the most accomplished and appreciated Finnish rock bands.
It is one of the very few groups that has managed to attain both critical
acclaim and commercial success. A brief history follows.
Cloaca Maxima (which is long for CMX) was founded in 1985 by Aki Yrjänä,
Pekka Kanniainen and Kimmo Suomalainen. Yrjänä is the only remaining
founding member in the band. The group's early musical influences were metal
(from Black Sabbath to Metallica), punk (Sex Pistols and such) and
progressive rock (Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Rush).
The success of the first demos came as a surprise for the band, which
suddenly found itself having a recording deal. The first ep Johannes Kastaja
(John the Baptist) was released by a bedroom label called P-Tuotanto, and
soon afterwards CMX moved to a renowned indie record company Bad Vugum to
make their first album.
The debut Kolmikärki (Trident) was released in 1990. The album is an
undisputed hardcore classic: loud, fast and refreshingly manic. Songs like
Suuri äiti (The Great Mother), however, suggested that the musical spectrum
of the band was probably not limited to what was on the debut. And the
lyrics were an issue unto themselves. Yrjänä's lyrical themes are far
removed from the conventionalities of pop music. The erudite and eclectic
songwriter often deals with arcane matters in archaic language, and this has
intrigued many of the people it hasn't baffled. Over the years, Yrjänä has
become one of the most respected lyricists in the country. He has also
published four books of his poems, all commercially successful.
When CMX released its second album Veljeskunta (The Brotherhood) in 1991,
hardcore had already become a thing of the past. Appropriately enough,
Veljeskunta begins with a tribal-like incantation and then moves on to kick
some serious musical butt. The overall sound is hard (but not as in
hardcore) and heavy (but not as in heavy metal), but the occasional slow
piece allows the listener to catch his breath. The beautiful Kätketty kukka
is the gem of the album, and the song continues to be an audience favourite.
In 1991, though, CMX did not perform that often in concert, but whenever it
did, the energetic frenzy of the gigs was both frenzied and energetic. After
a couple of personnel changes the band found a combination that would last
many a year: Aki Yrjänä (bass / vocals), Janne Halmkrona (guitars), Timo
Rasio (guitars) and Pekka Kanniainen (drums).
While Veljeskunta was sonically a slightly flawed album, the group was
clearly one that would go places. And one of the places they subsequently
did go was the room where they signed a recording deal with EMI, the
multinational that would release their future albums. In 1992 the band came
up with Aurinko (The Sun), which was a great step forward. The compositions
were more refined than on the previous two albums, and quite a few guest
musicians were invited to play violins, bass clarinet and other instruments.
The album also contains the first CMX hit, Ainomieli. It was never released
as a single, though.
In early 1994, CMX surfaced again with Aura, a surprisingly mellow and very
manifold album. Aura is dominated by the presence of a string orchestra
which gives some of the slower pieces an almost symphonic quality. Only two
songs remind the listener of the old, metallic CMX, whereas the rest of the
album moves through different stages of pop, rock, meditative music and
punkish tango. The album went to Top 5, and the haunting ballad Ruoste was a
big hit. This was also the point where some of the old die-hard fans got
irate about the band's new direction. One assumes that they found
headbanging in slow motion to be somewhat frustrating.
The 1995 album Rautakantele (The Iron Kantele; and if your dictionary knows
the word "kantele", it's a pretty good one) was arguably a step backwards.
Many of the songs on Aura had been difficult or downright impossible to pull
off live, and Rautakantele returned to a more band-oriented approach. This,
however, was not regression. The songs were very carefully crafted, and
Rautakantele doesn't lack diversity, either: it starts off with a classic
CMX rocker and ends with a hymn. Pelasta maailma turned out to be yet
another CMX hit, getting a lot of airplay on the radio.
November 1996 saw the release of yet another album, Discopolis. It broke new
ground by bringing in modern technology and trends. Loops is the key word.
However, the technology in no way pushes the musicians aside. Rather, the
musicians allow technology to support their playing in whatever ways it can.
Discopolis got a very mixed reception, and it was also the first CMX album
to sell gold. Since then, most of the earlier CMX albums have also reached
gold status.
In the autumn of 1997, the band released a 3 cd compilation titled Cloaca
Maxima, which contained both all the hits and, more importantly, most of the
b-sides and rarities that had become completely unavailable over the years.
Cloaca Maxima was highly successful and showed that a lot of people had been
pining for the extra tracks. The release of Cloaca Maxima also turned out to
be the end of an era for the band: the drummer Pekka Kanniainen decided to
resign. He was soon replaced by Tuomas Peippo, who played on the extremely
successful Cloaca Maxima tour and proved to be a versatile percussionist who
could hit things hard and often. However, CMX have only played very few of
the old hardcore songs on stage since the day Pekka Kanniainen left.
Simplistic as those songs sound, they are excruciatingly difficult to play
on the drums, and Pekka Kanniainen may well be Finland's best hardcore
hard-hitter.
In the summer of 1998, the band began to write their seventh studio album,
which was to be christened Vainajala. They rented a cabin far from the
noises and disturbances of city life, and in that safe seclusion they sat
down to create more of their characteristically disturbing noises. The album
was produced by Billy Gould, the bassist of the late and great Faith No
More.
When Vainajala was released in the autumn of 1998, it shot straight to
number one in the charts. This was greeted by both enthusiasm and disgust.
Once again some of the ultra-faithful fanatics accused the band of diluting
their music and selling out. This criticism was not entirely without factual
basis: all the concerts on the Cloaca Maxima tour had been sold out, and
this kind of success was to continue. But the more important fact is that if
the band had decided to write music according to the wishes of its audience,
that would've been a case of "selling out".
Sometime during the Vainajala tour in 1999, CMX announced that it would quit
touring. The group had seen everything the Finnish touring scene had to
offer, and fatigue was creeping in. The press, true to itself, misunderstood
the announcement and wrote big headlines saying that CMX would stop
performing altogether. Much confusion around, much umbrage taken, many
questions pouring in from the fans. CMX played its "last" concert in July
1999, in the beautiful atmosphere of Ilosaarirock, Joensuu.
CMX was not quitting. In fact, the band's next effort would be a double
album, titled - wait for it - Dinosaurus Stereophonicus. The package, which
contained approximately two hours of music, was released toward the end of
the year 2000. While the album never went to number one (its release
coincided with the release of the new U2 album, which shot to the top of the
charts), it got an unanimously positive response and quickly reached gold
status. Dinosaurus Stereophonicus is an ambitious album even for CMX. Since
the band had no immediate plans for touring, the group didn't need to worry
about live requirements in the studio. So they brought in choirs, made
startlingly complex arrangements and occasionally abandoned their
time-honoured tradition of having two guitars in every song. Some of the
songs will not work live because they contain too much stuff, and some
contain so little stuff that half the band would have nothing to do.
Dinosaurus Stereophonicus is an almost "quaint" album in the sense that the
production is not very modern (some of the tricks are very seventies in
their atmosphere). Also, the compositions owe much to such names as Black
Sabbath, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel and so on. As one
journalist put it: Dinosaurus Stereophonicus made prog popular again.
Whether the album really is the classic it has been claimed to be remains to
be seen.
Some time after Dinosaurus Stereophonicus came out, the band realised that
they wanted to perform again. They did not, however, want to do yet another
tour of Finnish clubs. The group decided to play festivals only, and the
summer of 2001 saw CMX playing about ten festival gigs to extremely
enthusiastic audiences who were more than happy to see their favourite
again. It took a while for the band to regain its on-stage confidence, but
some of the shows were among the finest CMX has ever done. This is the
opinion of both the band and the fans.
In 2002, CMX surfaced (or plunged into the depths, depending on your point
of view) again with Isohaara. It was a return to a more direct approach
after the colossal and occasionally bombastic Dinosaurus Stereophonicus.
Isohaara is often regarded as an oddity of sorts, not exactly a failure but
somehow lacking in something that is difficult to define. It did, however,
contain one of the biggest hits the band has ever done, Minun sydämeni on
särkynyt (My heart is broken). And there are many excellent songs on the
album: Pohjoista leveyttä, Minne paha haudattiin (featuring quite possibly
the band's first guitar solo without a hint of irony in it), Isohaara and
Tuulilukko. So maybe the "weakness" of Isohaara lies only in the fact that
it didn't really break any new ground for the band.
After Isohaara, CMX became a touring band again, much to delight of its
fans. Their gigs continued to sell out, which was at least partially due to
the fact that there were never too many of them. This has been the group's
strategy from day one: never to over-expose themselves, never to be too
available. And so, when CMX hit the road for a selection of shows, the gigs
sold out, which they still do with amazing regularity.
If Isohaara was something of a creative pause or an inhalation, then the
next album Aion, released in 2003, was a creative burst or an exhalation:
quite possibly their best album up to that point and an undisputed
masterpiece. Strangely enough, both the fans and the critics seemed to agree
on this.
Aion was a hard, cold, demanding and progressive album; the lyrics were full
of anguish but the album still managed to end on a hopeful note. The band
was of the opinion that Kuoleman risteyksestä kolme virstaa pohjoiseen
(Three Leagues to the North from the Crossing of Death - and in case you're
wondering, the title doesn't really roll from the tongue in Finnish, either)
was the best song they'd produced up to that point, and it is easy to see
why: this ambitious, quirky and beautifully orchestrated track was as
progressive as the band had ever been, and the lyrics dealt with the
apparent futility of life, the value of immediate experience over mere
knowledge, and other throwaway issues like that.
Sivu paholaisen päiväkirjasta (An Excerpt From the Devil's Diary) was,
lyrically speaking, a harbinger of things to come, although it wasn't
possible to know it at the time. But something was clearly in the air: A. W.
Yrjänä had previously concentrated on themes that some deemed archaic, but
this was a clear departure from that style. The lyrics were close to sci-fi,
which led some people to speculate that Yrjänä was at home both in the
future and in the past, it was only the present moment he felt exiled from.
After Aion, it was time for another compilation. The successor of Cloaca
Maxima was titled, imaginatively enough, Cloaca Maxima II, and once again
the most memorable material resided on the 3rd cd consisting of b-sides and
rarities. A number of years ago, the band had decided on a new strategy for
its b-sides: the whole track would be conceived, written and recorded during
a single studio day. The results, naturally, varied, but what was lacking in
refinement was often balanced by an abundance of spontaneity, and although
most of the songs wouldn't have fit on an album, their quirkiness made them
very worthwhile. Besides, songs like Punainen nro. 6 or Ehdota jotain
parempaa are classic CMX.
The next album, Pedot (Beasts) came out in 2005, and it was a brother of
Rautakantele and Isohaara. This means that it didn't really contain anything
drastically new, it was simply a collection of fine CMX songs. Well,
actually, the title track did break new ground for the band: if you listen
carefully, or actually if you listen at all, you can hear Tuomas Peippo play
double bass drums. You know, the same fast and steady pattern that was first
made famous by Rainbow in Kill the King and then re-popularized by Metallica
in Fight Fire With Fire, and the same pattern that just about every metal
band uses today in just about all of their songs.
Once again, the lyrics of Pedot contained subtle hints of what was to come.
At least four songs on the album deal with stars, space, the future, the
death of celestial bodies and so on. Something was clearly in the air. A
change was on its way.
The nature of the change was revealed on Talvikuningas (The Winter King,
2007), the most recent CMX album and their undisputed masterpiece. This
progressive science-fiction concept album (I'm not kidding) was released in
the fall of 2007 as a limited edition only, and it sold out in a matter of
something like nanoseconds. The audience response was overwhelmingly
positive, and the band was unabashedly proud of what it had done. Small
wonder: the album is clearly their best yet.
Talvikuningas tells the story of the winter king, who nevertheless remains
an enigmatic figure in the end. He is clearly a creature of overwhelming
power, but this power doesn't translate into happiness in his personal life.
Wars are waged, romances are ruined, civilizations are destroyed and clones
cloned. A captain of a star ship sails somewhere, unaware of his past and
future, and a king bereft of all solace and beauty yearns for a love lost
long ago.
Musically, Talvikuningas breaks new ground and incorporates some new
elements from the past. This is the first time that CMX visits its hardcore
roots with Tuomas Peippo on the drums. Much of the music is metallic, hard,
cold and tense, but the occasional "balladic" moments are extremely
beautiful. The musicologically inclined listener will notice the abundance
of odd rhythms (particularly seven) and chromatic scales. So, musically
speaking, the winter king is a distant relative of the crimson king.
Coming up next: who knows.
©1995-2007 Tero Valkonen
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