Saitma – Blizzard Tapes 2023 demo review – January 2024 AB

From the cold North comes a very interesting demo, released digitally via Bandcamp on the 22nd of December 2023.

Saitma is a four piece Finnish black metal band hailing from Tampere and this is their 3rd demo release, after “Blizzard Tapes 2021” and “Blizzard Tapes 2022“.

From the indecipherable logo created by the man himself Sami Albert Hynninen to the simple black and white cover, it’s clear from the start that we’re dealing with pure, fucking armageddon. By that I mean raw and primitive black metal with a very strong old school vibe, but with a slight touch of melody, just the way the Finns like it. There are no female or clean vocals, no keyboards, no slow atmospheric parts, only in your face and very fast riffs and blast beats. During the 15 minutes of this demo, Saitma takes us on a one way trip to the moldy basements of the 90s, when black metal was fast and dirty and it did not take any prisoners.

There’s no filler on this demo, what you hear is what you get. The 5 tracks go straight for the kill, like a rain of bullets. At first listen they put you in a state of discomfort, as your senses are assaulted by the ever pounding blast beats and the cavalcade of “primitive” riffs (take “The Resistant” or “Prevail“, for example). The more you spin the songs though, the more “enjoyable” they become and in the end you’ll want to bang you head as hard as possible along with the musick. The raspy, threatening vocals strongly remind me of Hat and the Pentagram era, with their high pitched aggressive tone. What sweet music they make.

The production is surprisingly good for such an underground release. Not only it doesn’t strip away the filth and the dirt from the songs, but in a strange way it adds more darkness to the whole demo.

Thanks to Saitma for making me discover this great piece of true Finnish black metal, I really enjoyed their latest release. Now I hope they’ll start working on a full length, the underground needs more black metal bands (and releases) like this.

PS: Don’t bother to look the band up on Google, you’ll have trouble find it. And that should be a good sign.

Saitma – Blizzard Tape 2023 Track List:

1 Non-Secular Plagues

2 Bullet Rain

3 River Runs Red Under the Burning Bridge

4 The Resistant

5 Prevail!