Helsingin Sanomat is the biggest newspaper in Finland. Browsing through its’ weekly supplement called NYT this morning I was mildly surprised to see The Puritan’s ”Lithium Gates” album get full points in the cd reviews section. I understand it’s been receiving favourable reviews elsewhere as well. I find this quite curious because the music on the cd is genuinely marginal and very extreme in deed, even after stripping off the usual adundance of adjectives of ”extremity” and ”heaviness” the record companies are so keen on attaching to most of their releases. This cd is so extreme that I can’t even listen to some of its’ most intense moments (namely the first half of the B-side of ”The Black Law”) and if someone as closely associated with The Puritan as I am is this disturbed by the end result then surely that’s a sign of the band successfully achieving some of the goals they’ve set out for themselves.

I’m well aware of the air of vagueness the band has maintained and will maintain regarding any details about their doings and identities. This is not because they wish to keep their identities hidden. That would be a bit ridiculous. This is because the identities of the musicians are very irrelevant to the actual music. Anyone who makes a little effort will find out who the musicians are, and after finding out will also find out that it doesn’t really matter who they are. What matters is the band as an entity and the music that entity creates. I have observed the activities of The Puritan from a vantage point since the beginning and will now share some of my observations.

”Lithium Gates” is released in a somewhat awkward moment since the band hasn’t played together for over two years now. Personally I found the idea of the whole cd a bit, shall we say not-so-hot, because the upcoming ”official” debut cd will include new (and better) versions of several of the songs now released. The way I see it, the listeners now automatically regard these earlier versions as the original and therefore definite ones (I know I would), no matter how improved and more to the point the versions released later on will be. But since the actual debut cd seems to take ages to complete (it’s been a ”work in progress” since 2006) I understand the record label is getting anxious to release something.

Thus ”Lithium Gates”, consisting of two now sold out vinyl albums released a few years ago. The self titled album was recorded hastily at the start of 2006, after the band had played together for some six months or so. This is the point where bands usually record a demo and this has a lot of the qualities usually associated with demos. It suffers from weak sound quality and shows the primitive conditions it was recorded in. During the next six months the band found its’ feet and laid the foundations to build upon. The drum tracks for the upcoming debut cd were recorded at the end of 2006 and other instruments have been slowly and painstakingly added to it from then on. The finished album is probably released sometime before the world ends, provided the world doesn’t end during the next few months.

On Spring 2007, the band cast aside the traditional method of ”first the band rehearses, then the band goes into the studio”. The drum tracks were recorded in one afternoon, on electronic drumkit, in a living room and without the drummer having heard the songs previously. This gave the project a flavour of spontaneity and openmindedness, also showing in the final product. The second half of ”Lithium Gates” is a lot stronger than the first half, stepping farther away from the conventional band sound and including some very chilling moments. This will also be the case with the upcoming cd. Or so I’m informed. I haven’t heard a single note of it so far but I have a strong feeling it will contain something previously unheard-of, if ”Lithium Gates” is any indication.