Emerging from Finland’s underground, Vihameditaatio return with their latest offering, Aistiharhojen puutarhassa. Founded in 2017 by occultists A.S and P.K, the duo has spent a steady run of releases channeling the abrasive punishment of raw black metal through warped, psychedelic riffs, yielding an ironically vibrant sonic texture far beyond what most contemporary acts are doing. With this record, their ritual takes full form, pushing a luminous, at times genuinely uplifting sound that stands in stark contrast to the sterile, militant tropes currently boring the scene to tears.
The invocation begins in earnest with “Armon näyttämöllä” (Roughly translating to: “On the Stage of Grace”), which waste no time establishing the hypnotic momentum of the record. Instead of rushing into relentless blast beats, the duo builds a repetitive, trance-inducing pulse that allows their eccentric melodic phrases to permeate into the listeners psyche to lock them into a dark meditative state. Swirling, radiant guitars, a prominent and groovy bass, and melodic drumming that culminate together and push forth vitriolic and harsh vocals that cut right through your trance. This track in particular really lays down the vibrant and approachable sound that the rest of the album builds upon. A clear highlight is the third track, “Arkkitehti havahtuu hypnoosista” (roughly: “The Architect Awakens from Hypnosis”), which scraps standard, ultra-distorted tremolo-picked walls in favor of loose, jangly, psychedelic riffs that feel more at home on an obscure indie record than in raw black metal. Yet paired with suffocating, fast-paced percussion and harsh vocals drenched in swirling effects, the atmosphere retains that signature black metal claustrophobia. The difference is in the coloring: instead of feeling bleak and grim, the chaos is manic, radiant, and intoxicating, evoking images of wrathful Tibetan deities tearing through the static.
This album gave me a rare jolt of genuine hope for where the genre can still go. While purists constantly lament a lack of authenticity in the modern scene, releases like this prove there is still fertile, uncharted ground left to break. Alongside projects like Slutet and Autumn Strife, Vihameditaatio stands as a vital example of artists pushing sonic boundaries not through forced novelty, but through pure, uncompromising intent.
Too much of the contemporary scene is suffocating under curated aesthetics, half-baked mythologies, and tired shock tactics, as if regurgitating 90s edge or misaligned modern woke politics could still genuinely rattle anyone today. What is truly transgressive now is sincerity. Watching social feeds drown in an endless cycle of bands pantomiming the old Norwegian scene while slapping uninspired noise over corpse-painted vanity posts had started to drain the joy out of a sound I’ve loved for years. Aistiharhojen puutarhassa, however, cuts clean through the noise like Mahakala tearing throiugh worldly illusions. It is an essential reminder of what black metal sounds like when it’s driven by an honest, internal fire rather than a desperate hunger for online clout.