Candy Cane — Fay-ra-Doowra

It is with great pleasure and joy that I, N.S. Endebo, a born carioca now living within the American maze, write about this boundary-leaping, barrier-skipping group from Tampere, Finland. My relationship with Candy Cane is fairly old and bloomed by chance, in the unhealthy madness of Soulseek random chatting. Coincidence or not, it so happens that Marko Neuman, CC’s singer, guitarist, leader and spokesman, and I share not only very similar tastes in pop and rock music, but a passion for languages as well. The weird title of this excellent album, Fay-ra-Doowra, is anything but the Portuguese word for horseshoe, ferradura, pronounced by a sun fearing young musician who loves words and their intrinsic musicality. Strangely, this title somehow connects us, and I am delighted to be able to talk briefly about the band that conceived it.

 

I’m no professional critic, if what I do be criticism at all; I’d prefer it not to be so. When I started collaborating with this website, I did so because I agree with its philosophy. We’re all music lovers, music is our hobby and our passion, and it is precisely this that we want to share. Since the rock album that will strike my innermost core as powerfully as Hildegard von Bingen’s music does is yet to be written, all I can do is take rock and pop music (aren’t they the same thing, after all?) to be entertainment, in many cases not at all innocent of higher artistic purposes. That said, I must state in clear words that Candy Cane is a very fun band to listen to, to follow and to love. Their music is unpretentious, spontaneous, vivid and coherent. Helped by the awesome Finnish band Astro Can Caravan’s brass section and other excellent local musicians, the quartet explores cinematic tones in the opening track, Tzufit, and when Fay-ra-Doowra is over the listener will have experienced Fantômas-like fast rock (El Perro Ladró Al Gato), noisy industrial 90s metal with blastbeats and piano postlude (Giddy), melodic tunes no one knows why have not become major hits yet (Group Hug, Kponyungo, Every Drop), traditional Finnish rabid-core (Error Humano), atmospheric black metal with easy listening interludes (Emily), soundtrack-like grandeur filled with cellos, glockenspiel, acoustic guitar solos and a tragic ending, when everything crumbles down in a torrent of noise (In Memory of All of You). Candy Cane perhaps could be called a punk band. Yes, a punk band that plays very well and does not care about posing. They are genuine children of Naked City, without trying to sound anything like it. In this they are successful, and Fay-ra-Doowra should be given a chance by everyone who loves Japanese noise, heavy metal and pop choruses.

 

In our modern futility we drown every time a “genre-blending” band appears; it’s not original anymore, true enough, and too much information misleads and confuses; in many cases, hard to swallow concepts are created to deliver that which lacks in the music. Candy Cane being a genre-blending band, I ought to say that Fay-ra-Doowra should be appreciated just because it’s good. A very good record is what it is, so much so even ever-biased deconstructionists, post-modernist blabbers, übersmart obscurantists and futile cultists can enjoy it greatly.