Finland are from Florida. Both Finland (the country) and Florida (the U.S. state) have a lot of lakes. One of them also has frat boys and sorority girls drinking and puking and fucking their way through spring break. The other has reindeer. Finland (the band) sound far too sensitive for the Daytona Beach shenanigans, so maybe they've taken their name out of a longing for swimming and saunas and reindeer?
Maybe I should just talk about the music, which is soft, deft, and beautiful. Listen to New Song Daily #45, "I Am the Mark" to get a good idea of what you're in for. That song brings together all the various aspects that Finland put to use across the eight tracks of "Awake, Arise the Great Untouchable". The songs here are largely quiet, with melodies that emerge simply and effectively with a degree of nuance that makes the attention one pays worth the effort. Lyrically things are in introspective-lonely-young-man mode, but the mopeyness is kept in check both by sharp turns of phrase and the way in which music and lyrics work together. So that when "Ivory" turns up as confirmation of my spring break theory, the lines, "Well congratulations / You're everybody's whore" deliver their blow with full effect, and yet without coming as a bludgeoning shock, if shocks can bludgeon. "Ivory" ends with a seamless transition into the keyboard-based "The Anchors that Keep Me", and that Finland can make a transition between two very different songs work so naturally highlights exactly why this short album is such a fragile and inviting pleasure. The same pleasure is brought out in the closing lyrics of the album, which I'll leave you to discover for yourself.