Games’n’Music - falling into poets
Post from May 2024...
At first glance, today’s hero band is just another glam rock band. But is it? They are so different and versatile, so musical and tasty. One of the permanent residents of my playlists since the first time I heard it. Welcome - Poets of the Fall!
The band was formed by Marko Saaresto - lead singer and composer - and Olli Tukiainen - lead guitar. There are other band members of course. But the core team is Marko and Olli. Nevertheless, band members have been super stable since the beginning.
According to the internet and my personal experience, the very first big public appearance for Poets of the Fall happened in 2003 with the song Late Goodbye, which became part of Max Payne's soundtrack. I remember playing that game with my pals in school. It was right after the Matrix film was released, everybody was obsessed with Matrix ideas. Max Payne video game utilized that as well. The player could enable special mode when everything became very slow. You jumped from the corner, slowly flew over the floor shooting enemies for about a minute! As Marko tells in some interview, they got a call from game dev company Remedy Entertainment with a suggestion to write a theme song for them. They met, talked a bit and Marko started to sketch lyrics right there in his notebook. After about 20 minutes they had a couple of variants and decided to work on one of them. Marko said - it became to sound in his head while thinking about words. This is how art and creativity work to me!
To me, Poets of the Fall was (and is) one of the brightest events ever on Finland rock stage. Got awards, signed with the label, toured across Europe. All that. But the best thing - music. It's deep. It brings you some mental condition while listening. It brings you musical experience - diverse vocals, non-trivial lyrics, cool but not too extravagant solo guitar. Overall music quality is high, I would say. It doesn’t push you inside the barrel and torture with noise. Instead, it gently puts you on a bench on a river bank in front of a cozy cafe with live music playing.
This time I want to even mention exact songs, that seems pretty good and important:
- Late Goodbye
- Carnival of Rust
- Children of the Sun
- 3 AM
- Someone Special
- More
- Revolution Roulette
- Maybe tomorrow’s a better day
Catchy titles, isn’t it? But there is something inside of each one.
Last year I followed Marko’s Facebook page during a band tour across Europe. He wrote something every time they were on a bus traveling from place to place. It's not just field notes (as I usually do, to be honest). it is an uncompromised extract of feelings and vision.
What about games? Recently I’ve written about Old Gods of Asgard and Alan Awake game - all done by Marko, Olli, and their bassist. They keep very good relationships with the Remedy game dev company and provide more and more great music there. I wish they live long and create more. Each new work makes me wonder how deep this mine of talent is.
Probably the only issue for me here - they rarely plan gigs in Finland. Don’t know why. I have lived here almost 3 years and was never able to go to a concert. It’s either in another city far up north or in too small venue that is sold out already. Funny enough, they did a couple of gigs on a cruise ship between Helsinki and Stockholm last year!
In the end, I’d like to note how they spend pandemic time. What do people usually do? Work from home. They instead got a deal with the Alexander Theatre in Helsinki and recorded a set of songs with strings orchestra. Or just with acoustic guitars and contrabass. Quality records bring you a feeling of a classical medieval music hall, but filled with modern rocky music!
Enjoy Unplugged Temple of Thought