My love for metal has given me a lot of great experiences during the years. I have seen many great shows, and also have met up with some of my favorite bands. My life was very rough and dark for some years with little time for amusements. But like the loving father our God is, he likes to give us the things that makes us happy. Now being a part of Christian Metalheads International – CMI and the MetalHouse ministry, I have just come to realize that I have not yet lived it all when coming to metal and metal experiences and that surely makes me excited.
This brings us to my next review: Inborn Tendency. I sort of had a crush on Amon Amarth ever since I met Johan Hegg and we shared some time talking about rock and metal music at Gates of Metal Festival 2005. I will always have an love for Vikings, since they seem to be the coolest people ever to have walked this planet. I will also always admire and explore their history, and it inspires me in my Christian life. Being a Christian should be about being ready to step out onto new grounds, trusting your God to be with you, even if the cost would be death. That is actually the greatest victory, because you get to meet up with your Creator and God.
When listening to Inborn Tendency some weeks right before Rainbow Rock I found myself playing the songs on repeat. They themselves label their music as groove metal or death metal. Yes, I got a thing for growling vocals! Ville Herranen is certainly one of the best growling singers I’ve heard live. He really has got everything together vocally and the band together feels like a very strong unit. Hearing this well-composed metal makes me happy and it’s always inspiring to listen to real raw metalheads devoted to God.
For me the Inborn Tendency songs like “Mariner Of The Unknown”, “Void” and “Devastation”, are about being out on a journey as Christians. I love the lyrics about struggles and hazardous ventures, but also how God is all powerful and gives us the faith and strength to live each day. Furthermore I also hear a bit of Amorphis in this music. A band that has done some great songs inspired by Finnish folklore. I have been to five live shows with them, so maybe you can just imagine how I feel about that. I believe Ville Herranen, Mika Hänninen and Hugo Tiitinen, together with their session musicians, Henri Thitz and Esa Kukkonen, have great things to offer us fans of melodic death metal far into the future.
Also regarding the future, I really hope for some lyrics from the Bible, like from the Old Testament times. The Israelis were fierce and should give some inspiration to a death metal songwriter. I know things like this already do exist, like Holy Blood (actually sometimes labelled as Viking metal), but with the touch of an Finnish-born and raised songwriter, there is still more grounds to cover on these topics.
What also amazes me is that Inborn Tendency are from Finland as are the following bands: Hilastherion who recently signed with Rottweiler Records, Safekeeper which I believe has a very bright future ahead, and also Parakletos and Immortal Souls among others. I´m sure Finland has loads of other Christian metal surprises and I hope to discover them and tell you more about them. These named bands should be considered, as their own scene: Finnish Christian melodic black/ death metal and hopefully they can strive to reach out to people and fans together so we can all share these wonderful gifts and hearts that God has planted in Finland.