''12 Gauge'' is the sixth studio album by the Finnish

melodic death metal Melodic death metal (also referred to as melodeath) is a subgenre of death metal that employs highly melodic guitar riffs, often borrowing from traditional heavy metal (including New Wave of British Heavy Metal). The genre features the heavine ...

band

Kalmah Kalmah is a Finnish melodic death metal band from Oulu that formed in 1998. In less than a year after its formation, Kalmah was signed by Spinefarm Records. The word "kalmah" is Karelian and could be translated as "to the grave" or "to the dea ...

, released on 3 March 2010. The album was recorded with more

thrash metal Thrash metal (or simply thrash) is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its overall aggression and often fast tempo.Kahn-Harris, Keith, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'', pp. 2–3, 9. Oxford: Berg, 2007, . ...

elements than their previous releases, while the melodies that the band is known for and environmental themes regarding the swamps of

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

were retained. ''12 Gauge'' was recorded in three sessions over a three-month period at Tico-Tico Studios in Finland. Each of the band members kept in touch with their fans by keeping track of their recording sessions online at the official website's studio diary. In addition, guitarist Antti Kokko videotaped the recording and

photo shoot A photo shoot is the process taken by creatives and models that results in a visual objective being obtained. An example is a model posing for a photographer at a studio or an outdoor location. A photo shoot is a series of images that are taken ...

sessions. Seven videos were posted online during the months leading up to the album's release. Promotion for the album was otherwise minimal. There were no official singles, but the track "Bullets Are Blind" was released on a 2-CD compilation included with ''Soundi'' magazine's 35th anniversary issue, and a music video to the album's title track was produced and posted online. ''12 Gauge'' received generally favorable reviews by European and American critics, with a few considering it better than either of its immediate predecessors, ''

For the Revolution ''For The Revolution''
is the fifth full-length

'' and ''

The Black Waltz ''The Black Waltz'' is the fourth full-length studio album by the Finnish melodic death metal band Kalmah and their first with keyboard player Marco Sneck. This album has them gravitating more towards thrash metal, which has often been cited as ...

''. It was agreed that the band succeeded in producing a thrashier album, but most critics found the music to be less sophisticated than the band's previous efforts. ''12 Gauge'' charted in two countries, peaking at number 32 in Canada and number 15 in the band's homeland. Because the band had not been offered a worldwide tour, support for the album would be limited to Europe and Canada.

Background

When Kalmah began writing music for their melodic death metal album, their intent was to incorporate more "aggressive thrash material" than their previous recordings had. As a result, the songs were going to be, as vocalist Pekka Kokko described, "quite straightforward", but the band did not want to lose the melodies they were known for. The album would not be entirely thrash metal, since the band planned on adding acoustic guitar sections and also trumpets. Antti Kokko, the primary songwriter for ''12 Gauge'', composed the riffs and melodies at his home. These ideas were developed into complete songs during rehearsals. Guitar and keyboard solos were then written, sometimes with both instruments soloing in the same song, trading off repeatedly. Two of the tracks, "Godeye" and "Sacramentum", were composed entirely by keyboardist Marco Sneck, including the solos. When the music was completed, Pekka began working on the lyrics, which were inspired by various topics, including "politics, religion ... drinking, failure, ndpessimism". Several of the songs shared an environmental theme. "Hook the Monster" was about fishing, "12 Gauge" was inspired by hunting, and the impact of land development in the swamps of Finland was the subject of "Swampwar". Commenting further on the swamps, Pekka remarked, " hosevaluable areas are a part of our northern wilderness and realways threatened to be ditched or drained. People are interested in those areas o useas a source of energy."

Production

Recording and mixing took place at Tico-Tico Studios in Kemi, Finland. The studio's schedule was too full for a single recording session, so Kalmah had to book time to record the album in three separate sessions, between the months of May and August 2009. The majority of tracks were recorded in May, beginning with Janne Kusmin's drums, which were completed by 12 May. Kusmin was not able to play as well as he had hoped because he had not been practicing. As a result, several of his drum parts were changed. By the following week, Timo Lehtinen had finished laying down the bass tracks. His technique was to play nearly all his parts with downstrokes to bring "more balls to the sound". He continued recording even after his thumb had formed a blister. According to Lehtinen, he used only two bass string sets and broke five picks. Pekka and Antti took turns recording their rhythm and lead guitar parts, respectively. Both guitarists played by striking the guitar strings at a 45-degree angle to achieve a more aggressive sound. Several of the guitar techniques used on the album had specific names: "Jynkhä" described the rapid succession of downstrokes, and a slower version of this technique was called "perusjynkhä." Speed-picking with alternating upstrokes and downstrokes was referred to as "hionta", Finnish for

grinding Grind is the cross-sectional shape of a blade. Grind, grinds, or grinding may also refer to: Grinding action * Grinding (abrasive cutting), a method of crafting * Grinding (dance), suggestive club dancing * Grinding (video gaming), repetitive and ...

. Some of the techniques used were difficult for Pekka, and his brother Antti took the time to show him proper fingering and grasps. The acoustic guitars were played by Antti. Ahti Kortelainen, the album's recording engineer, was credited by the band for his input on how the acoustic guitars were recorded, especially for the song "Sacramentum". All the guitar tracks, excluding the solos, were finished by 28 May. By the middle of June, Pekka had recorded vocals for five tracks, which Antti described as "very raw ... the way we want them to be". Pekka's vocals would continue to be recorded in August, and he completed them on 20 August. Antti had also completed his guitar solos by June and was pleased with the results. "For me, the solos are hebest that I have ever managed to create, and I'm very satisfied." After a summer break, the band returned to record Sneck's keyboards, which took place over three days, 17–19 August. Sneck worked with software effects for the first time, along with

sound modules A sound module is an electronic musical instrument without a human-playable interface such as a piano-style musical keyboard. Sound modules have to be operated using an externally connected device, which is often a MIDI controller, of which the ...

. He introduced synthesized horns to the band's instrumentation, but an actual trumpet was used for the intro to "Rust Never Sleeps". Pekka Kokko (Kalmah) rhythm guitar (crop)

Pekka Kokko (Kalmah) rhythm guitar (crop)

Although the band produced the album, Pekka stated that Antti was the main producer since he was present at every step of the production, including mixing and mastering. Because they were comfortable self-producing on all their previous albums, they refused to bring in an outside

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

for ''12 Gauge''. "This concept has worked for us since the beginning and we just want to trust it. Everything goes easy with this setup and we don’t want any extra risk factors". Mastering for the disc took place at the Cutting Room in Stockholm, Sweden. The title of the album was chosen by Pekka and Antti, who both enjoy hunting. They wanted to draw a comparison between the

shotgun shells A shotgun shell, shotshell or simply shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) cartridges used specifically in shotguns, and is typically loaded with numerous small, pellet-like spherical sub-projectiles called shot, fired throu ...

and the music. Pekka added that the title also alludes to "unpleasant matters" that the listener can infer from his lyrics. When it came time to design the album cover, the band decided against using computer-generated graphics. They commissioned Rami Mursula to create a hand-drawn piece of artwork, depicting a man emerging from the swamp to fight a beast. Pekka explained the symbolism: "In Kalmah's mindset, there is Swamplord defending his marshlands against hemonster created by common materialism, industrial pollution and heworld-wide nausea of globalism." The layout was inspired by Akseli Gallen-Kallela's 1896 painting, ''

The Defense of the Sampo ''The Defense of the Sampo'' ( fi, Sammon puolustus) is an 1896 Romantic national painting by Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela. The painting illustrates a passage from the ''Kalevala'', the Finnish national epic compiled by Elias Lönnrot i ...

''.

Promotion

Images used in the album artwork were photographed by

Vesa Ranta Vesa Ranta (born 20 July 1973) is a Finnish drummer. He was one of the original members of the metal bands Sentenced and The Man-Eating Tree. He is also a fine art photographer and was owner of the Nuclear Nightclub live music club and bar in d ...

at one of Finland's many swamps. The photo session was documented by Antti in a two-part video, titled "The Call of the Wild." These, and five other short videos documenting the recording of ''12 Gauge'', were uploaded in the months leading up to the album's release. There was no official single, but in December 2009, the track "Bullets Are Blind" was included on a 2-CD collection released as a companion to the 35th anniversary issue of ''Soundi'' magazine, and a music video was shot and posted online for the track "12 Gauge". In February 2010, Kalmah launched a second MySpace page solely dedicated to the new album. The album was released on CD and digital download in Japan in February, followed by releases in Canada and Europe in March, and in the US in April. A vinyl pressing was also made available in April, limited to 500 copies. There would not be a worldwide tour to promote the album because the band had not received a "decent offer". The ''12 Gauge'' promotion was therefore limited to several gigs in Finland and a brief 10-show tour in Canada. The 4 March performance in

Jyväskylä Jyväskylä () is a city and municipality in Finland in the western part of the Finnish Lakeland. It is located about 150 km north-east from Tampere, the third largest city in Finland; and about 270 km north from Helsinki, the capital of ...

, Finland, was considered to be the album's release party.

Critical reception

Allmusic's Eduardo Rivadavia said Kalmah's sixth album was "more aggressive than its immediate predecessors". David E. Gehlke of Blistering was already devoted to Kalmah's previous album, ''For the Revolution'', so he had high expectations for ''12 Gauge''. He found the album full of "break-neck riff action", "visceral melodies", and "daring" dueling between Antti's guitar and Sneck's keyboard. Although Gehlke believed that Kalmah gets better with each output, he decided that ''12 Gauge'' did not "match the ... glory" of ''For the Revolution''. Jussi Kallinen of Imperiumi.net said that Pekka's vocals harkened back to the band's 2006 album, ''The Black Waltz''. He said the album was not anything new, but he found the production to be the best of Kalmah's releases. MetalEater's Sean Bester decided Kalmah's strength lay in their consistency: "releasing energetic and melodic music with consistent intervals of time between them, delivering tracks that are consistently likable, and each one is consistent with the sound they've firmly established for themselves." NecroWeb gave the album a perfect score, because it was "beautifully arranged", "wonderfully varied", did not contain any filler material, and it succeeded at combining melodic thrash with

blackened death metal Blackened death metal (also known as black death metal) is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal that fuses elements of black metal and death metal. The genre emerged in early 1990s when black metal bands began incorporating elements of death me ...

(a combination of black metal and death metal). Chris Colgan, writing for

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...

, found the album to have the longest and most intricate solos yet, and he, too, mentioned the increased trading off between Antti's and Sneck's solos. He thought it important that Kalmah had "not fallen prey to the tendency of introducing American metal elements or becoming more mainstream with their sound. Their music now is as unique as it was in their early years, if not more so". Marko Säynekoski of ''Soundi'' described the performances as "controlled", "burly", and "performed effortlessly". Stalker's Kathleen Gransalke admitted that she was unfamiliar with Kalmah's previous work, but she was nevertheless impressed with its technicality, double-guitar melodies, fast solos, and the combining of genres. She called the album "a lot of fun to listen to".

"12 Gauge" music video

A music video was created for the song "12 Gauge", though the acoustic intro was excised from the final version. It was shot on 20 February 2010 in

Pudasjärvi Pudasjärvi () is a List of cities and towns in Finland, town and a Municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. It is located in the provinces of Finland, province of Oulu (province), Oulu and is part of the Northern Ostrobothnia regions of ...

, Finland, in some of the coldest temperatures the country had had in decades. The morning temperature when the band began filming was recorded at , rising only to at the end of the day. The band and camera operator were kept warm by a bonfire, though Antti said that they were used to cold temperatures. The video, which debuted online on 1 March was produced by the record label, Spinefarm, and Kalmah. The camera and

Steadicam Steadicam is a brand of camera stabilizer mounts for motion picture cameras invented by Garrett Brown and introduced in 1975 by Cinema Products Corporation. It was designed to isolate the camera from the camera operator's movement, keeping th ...

operator was Markus Lintu, and Kalmah's bassist, Timo Lehtinen, edited and color-timed the final product. The video cuts between two narratives. In the first, a hunter (uncredited actor) straps a 16-gauge shotgun around his shoulder, and tracks footsteps through the snow, eventually finding the Swamplord (the band's mascot, here as depicted on the covers of ''The Black Waltz'' and ''For the Revolution''). In the second narrative, the band members, dressed warmly in heavy clothing, are sitting around a campfire, preparing a kettle of an unknown drink. As each person takes a sip, they begin convulsing. To simulate the drink's effects, the camera used shaking and rapid zooming. As the song finishes, Pekka pours himself a drink and is the only one immune to its effects.

Track listing

Personnel

; Band * Pekka Kokko −

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

, rhythm guitars,

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featu ...

s * Antti Kokko −

s * Marco Sneck −

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

s * Janne "Kuisma" Kusmin − drums * Timo "Lede" Lehtinen −

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

; Production * Håkan Åkesson – mastering * Kalmah – arranger, producer * Ahti Kortelainen –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

, mixing * Rami Mursula – cover art, layout * Vesa Ranta –

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

* Joona Lukala – LP mastering * The Official Kalmah Pig Unit – chorus * J-P Peltoniemi –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...