I admit I was drawn to check out Nihilistinen Barbaarisuus purely out of curiosity for their moniker. After all, it is a strange and unusual name. Mika Mage, the creative force behind the band, being from Finland originally, the moniker probably means something like Nihilistic Barbarians, but it sounds even cooler in Finnish. Not sure which of the two recent releases came first, I picked up the EP Vainamoinen to start my journey, but it is actually the latter of the two, with full-length Synkka Tuuli (a separate review this week) coming first.

On Vainamoinen the band apparently continues their atmospheric black metal explorations began earlier. After 40 sec of the frozen synth intro, the title track is an exercise in extremely lo-fi, sound compressed, Burzum inspired 2-note tremolo and primitive blasting, with an occasional synth touch. Some occasional hissing behind the curtain, Vainamoinen is not breaking new ground and is typical of the genre. It is a definite case of getting what you expect, no more and no less. Eventually, the standard atmospheric black fare ends, pretty suddenly, and the kill is followed by bass meandering and the song returning full circle to where it started, on some cold remote plane. The latter is the feeling Nihilistinen Barbaarisuus invokes often on Synkka Tuuli as well, but more on that elsewhere.

Yo, Jolloin Han Kuoli is a short, acoustic folk flavor infused instrumental, pleasant in its brief melodic development, showing off another side of the band and revealing its roots.

Somebody apparently saw enough in here to sign the band to a full-length release, which is apparently coming out shortly.