Fata Morgana

Bands from Finland have always produced some of the most morbid music I have ever had the pleasure of owning . Generally speaking groups from the same country made similar yet completely different music to create a sound that was their own all the while being completely unique to the scene and to their country . Sweden had their brutally guttural down tuned sludge infested death metal bands . Japan had their over the top grindcore influenced death metal bands . South America gave us their raw blatantly satanic blackened thrash and death metal offerings . The United States followed suit with all of the above and in some cases (death metal wise) produced many of the pioneers who actually started this entire scene .(Autopsy, Death, Repulsion etc) Finland had their own sound as well often mixing in and utilizing any component necessary to create some of the heaviest music ever produced . Xysma is one of the original Finnish forgotten greats .

To this day starting back in the eighties it just always seemed that this band had done something completely different, all the while staying true to their morbid twisted way of producing songs . This band is not your common death metal band or grindcore band or to put it simply underground band . This band was much more .

Their lone style was a mix of many things . The vocals on Fata Morgana are very Carcass-like obviously using pitch shifters to warp and bend the vocal tracks to the full extremities of the imagination . The lows are inhumanly low, almost vomit inducing and gurgling . They add to the sickness this band wants to portray in every second of their songs . The mid and high range vocals don't ever seem to be sung unless they are used as a highlight of sorts with the ultra low ones delivered in complete synchronicity together . The guitars and bass on this almost seem to be tuned down to an ultra heavy B . Their sound often has aspects of that all too familiar and amazing "Swedish sound" . Trust me that's not a bad thing here it's just how it sounds .

The drummer as well as the song structures are very "off" sounding meaning that often they contain beats and rhythms that just don't fit into the common death metal or grindcore mode of production . The guitar, bass, and drums play almost wacky grinding quirky yet heavy as hell sludgy punishing music topped off with vocal tracks that can't be digested by anyone that's not a fan of the most extreme forms of underground music and I am most certainly one of them . It seems like a conglomerate of death and grind and electronic utilization with only the boundaries of their song writing capabilities to form any sort of barrier for these Finnish bands and it was extremely evident with Xysma . Xysma is one of the original forgotten greats .

There are three songs on the first press of the Fata Morgana e.p. and that's what I am reviewing here as I don't own any of the represses . All three songs: Fata Morgana, Embodiment of Morbidity, and On the Hill of Desecration each offer a generous helping of the previously mentioned formula that can only be described as amazing . This band would eventually go the way of so many others in the early days of the scene by breaking up or as Xysma did, by changing their musical style completely . Any of their releases from 1989 to1990 are insanely sick and twisted and should be looked up by anyone that's into almost inconceivably heavy early grind and death metal . After that they changed into a pop rock band that will appeal to the general public and people into boring redundant poppy garabge . As for me I'll take my Xysma with a huge helping of putrid gurgling grinding death filled sickness thank you very much . This one's a classic .