Originally posted on Butthole Chainsaw. Revisiting this as I do research for a post on nowadays speed metal.
Pyöveli – No Speed Limits
Valkeakoski, Finland
Headsplit Records (cassette) / Rotten Leather Productions (CD)
April 24, 2019
You’re walking along a deserted road. You’re tired. A sweet, Hitcher-ass muscle car pulls up alongside you. It skids to a stop kicking up a cloud of dust. Even though it’s stationary, its ancient engine lopes menacingly, foreshadowing its natural state of bolt-spitting speed. The passenger window rolls down in herky-jerky increments. You hear a voice from inside the car: “HoldonthecrankisSTICKAAAaaahhhgggggh.” The window finally rolls all the way down. You see two men in the car. They look like brothers. They tell you to get into the car.
Do you:
- Start walking backwards, plotting your escape?
- Get in the car?
You get in the car. You squeeze into the back. To make room, you push a pile of chains over to the next seat. You look down and see that the vinyl exterior has worn away. You sit on the ancient, stale foam. Wait, why are there chains in here? you begin to ask yourself before an exposed spring prods your undercarriage. The man in the passenger seat turns around and faces you. He wears a manic expression, like he’s pissing into gale-force winds. “Snort this,” he says. He hands you bag of white powder.
Do you:
- Beat both men to death with the chains and run to safety?
- Snort the powder?
You snort the powder. Your vision goes black. When it returns, whatever buffer previously existed between you and reality has been removed. You are terrified. You look out the side window. Everything now looks like a pencil drawing. Maybe that’s just Finland? you think before you realize that your heart is trying to give itself CPR. The driver looks at his brother in the front seat. “Thrash!” yells one. “Metal!” yells the other. The man who handed you the white powder plays a dive-bomb note on his guitar. Wait, where did he get a guitar? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. You’re no longer tired. You feel alive. Connected with the universe. What were once eternal mysteries are now suddenly graspable. If you only had the time you could surely untangle them. With an animalistic high-pitch scream, the driver drops the hammer and stomps the gas pedal to the floor. It dawns on you that there’s no windshield right when the car crashes into a fucking tree.
This is what it’s like to listen to Pyöveli, a Finnish duo staffed by T. Pyöveli N. (guitars, bass) and T. Metal N. (drums, vocals). These two battle vest bedecked individuals are brothers. No Speed Limits, the band’s fourth full-length, is so indisputably metal that it’s above criticism. It would be like reviewing a steel beam after sneaking into a construction site. Sure, you might have some interesting takeaways, but everyone working there just thinks you’re trespassing. Alas, my pack voted me the critic wolf and thus I must fulfill my beta-lupine purpose. Awooo.
Pyöveli’s previous material recaptured a time when thrash was in its infancy, still sharing traits with its NWO/speed metal forebears. It’d be easy to slot that stuff in with the demo material of the Teutonic set. The music was similarly frantic and barely contained, full of yelps and yips and flesh-searing, whammy bar lashes. Its main intent was to go fast. That has been Pyöveli’s end game for over 20 years. All musical elements either support that goal or go flying off the frame like a jalopy shedding bolts when it reaches terminal velocity.
The aptly titled No Speed Limits is still nominally that, but is really something else entirely. It is metal, lest you think its “thrash” and “metal” cassette side titles are lying. But it is insane. It reminds me far more of the drug-fueled psychosis of Hüsker Dü’s Land Speed Record, where each note and rhythm sound like they’re trying to inhabit the space of the one next to it. To that end, the question you have to ask yourself over these 28 minutes is whether T. Metal N. and T. Pyöveli N. are playing together or racing each other. There is no time for coherence. This song, and that means whatever song they are currently playing, needs to be finished right now, goddamnit.
If drugs aren’t in the picture, I have to imaging that No Speed Limits’s A-side is what you get when you don’t see anyone else for months. It’s incredibly cabin fever-y, jittery with cooped-up aggression. This insulation from outside opinions leads to some charmingly crazy decisions. The drumming, in particular, is absurd. Like, why do the toms sound like someone is throwing a coffee can down stairs? But the thing is, on an ambient level, this all works. It rips invigoratingly, ideal background music for slow days.
The downside is that, on closer inspection, there’s not a whole lot on No Speed Limits to pull off for a mixtape. These songs work well together but can’t coexist peacefully if forced to leave solitary confinement for genpop. They’re just too insane, too monomaniacally obsessed with getting to the next Pyöveli track. If one doesn’t follow, the whole exercise just kind of falls apart, highlighting its inadequacies, becoming less of an outsider gem and more an amateurish attempt to fly towards the speed metal sun. Pyöveli requires a Pyövelian context to make sense.
That said, the B-side’s session, starting with the ruthless “The Burning of V-Axe City,” is a bit more together, peaking with the hypnotically furious “Possessed by Warfare.” If you need to listen to one track, that’s the one. It’s the lone stretch where the band truly locks in, albeit in a twisted and incredibly idiosyncratic kind of way. That’s the litmus test. You either crave that or you don’t.
No matter what side of that street you drive on, No Speed Limits needs to be heard. If you’re a fan of seedier, fermented thrash and speed metal, this is a no-brainer. If not, it’s worth testing your assumptions. Because, really, it’s as true as can be, right down to the edges that are so rough they’ll rub your Venom patch off. Here’s the only scenario you need to answer, then:
Do you:
- Skip this for some safe-ass pizza thrash?
- Turn it up?
You turn it up.
– Wolf Rambatz
Plague Rages 