Ville Kiviniemi, aka The Mattoid, has learned that crude humor and Christian hazing are taboo in any language, but this Gothic world traveler from Finland has not let that stop him with his second release, Glory Holy EP, available online under Infinity Cat Recordings.
Hailing from the cold shores of Western Europe, with stints in Mexico, Thailand, India and Egypt, The Mattoid has brought the show back to Nashville after an eight month hiatus spent in his homeland of Finland. It was his first time back home in 20 years.
The Mattoid’s morose and atmospheric lyrics teeter on the edge of being humorous and amiss yet hold a strange elegance, focusing on the contradiction between the darkest and purest of human emotions. His songs represent the duality of pain and happiness, and how their paths most often coincide.
Glory Holy’s uplifting arrangements of synthetic drums and strung-out guitar chords illustrate Ville’s Dracula-like laments about the cold truths of white-collar society. You might even notice a resemblance to ’80s protogoth rock like The Cure and Joy Division.
Underneath the road vagabond, gypsy raconteur that is The Mattoid alias lies a character unlike anyone Nashville has ever known. Infinity Cat loves him, and so does the indie music scene of Nashville who both encourage his strangeness in all its forms, marking Ville as the unknown, but not forgotten original king of the city’s current garage rock/psych/indie scene. – David Wright