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Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Lemmy, Van Halen, The Police, Soundgarden… Those are some of the influences mentioned in the Fingerspitzengefühl biography, and I could go on for weeks without sleep just naming names, but FSG won’t sound like any of them… That’s what matters. In short, this band seems to deal with two issues; how to endure life and how to cultivate their schizophrenia. Because the music is truly schizo, I kid you not. It’s like life and death colliding and collapsing. Don’t be fooled by that pop song Pick It Up, because you have Kursk waiting around the corner and it will kill you. If you’re narrow-minded about music you might have a problem here.
Fingerspitzengefühl have played together with Neurosis as well as to an empty crowd, all within a time range of a few weeks. That’s schizo as well.
In my opinion this is easily one of the top five active Swedish bands today. On stage they split your weak skull, body and soul in about a thousand pieces. That’s right.
Here are three mpthrees for you to download and listen to, but first check out this YouTubed version (distorted as fuck) of Kursk . It’s heavier than your mama.
Express Death from the two track promo released in 2008
The Smell of Stress And Death from the self titled album (2004)
Kursk from the Happy Doomsday album (2006)
Express Death [Please notice: d-beat!]
He gave you / A bitter name / To bring you down
An anchor / Gets a grip / On bottom of the sea
He gave you / Someone else’s name / To pull you down
Alone with / Its damnation / Forever tied to it
He gave you / A hollow soul / Impossible to waste
He greets you / With twinkling eyes / You can never reach
God’s great
He gave you / A bitter name / There’s nothing you can do
Roaring depth / Hand over you / You sink through the soil
He whispered / Your mother’s name / You know what she’ll be
Pungent pain / Indifference / God’s on my shoulder
I love you
Express death / Yeah, let it show / For her, expose / Death, and let it show
Guide her to the light
Genuine Semblance
Today is one of those tired days
A smell of stress and death
Bodies erect, heads depressed
Walking among faces and names
Can’t appreciate the luxury of barely standing up
The path of another man, a fist between the eyes
I fight this mortifying plague
I burn my belongings
I set the mall on fire
I turn into a thief
The infection burns the mold out
Tomorrow comes the cure
In hiding at the dead end
Better off like this
Look at the man’s eyes
Nothing looks back
Shift to sleep without transition
Tightening the noose
Black blood spurt
In one solid piece
Black blood
All defences fall
The world flickers like a picture
Moving in and out of focus
So monstrous and fantastic
Walk on through
Earthbound needs
Photo by Mattias Indy Pettersson