Jessi Frey - Warrior

REVIEW BY KIZUNAUT

While the synth scene may perhaps know her best for her solo debut album Villainess, Jessi Frey first rose to prominence as the front woman of the Finnish industrial metal band Velcra. With Velcra Jessi would demonstrate her range both as a vocalist and as a songwriter, effortlessly moving between singing and screaming, pounding industrial metal and soft melodies. Using this formula, Velcra found great success in Finland, got the prized Emma award nomination for best newcomer and toured Europe. The band came to an end in 2008, leaving behind a fanbase that endures to this day, and for a good reason. 

I can’t claim to be some kind of a Velcra OG fan, but their biggest hit My Law was part of the sonic tapestry of my teens, receiving enough airplay and screen time to leave a trace in my memories. I really discovered the band properly much later on in my 20s and heavily regretted spending my teens as an embarrassing trad metal larper when it came to music and not actually going out there and discovering what was happening at the time. 

The band’s nu metal-influenced, energetic yet still melodic industrial metal that had Jessi both singing and doing a kind of scream-rap that feels ahead of its time is more than compelling and remains quite unique. My favorite from the band’s discography is 2007s Hadal that saw the band use much more prominent electronic elements than before. I have sometimes described it to people as being Finland’s equivalent of NIN’s The Fragile, a genre-transcending masterpiece that was ahead of its time. Someone could release it today and it would still sound fresh. 

I don’t think it’s good to obsess over the past of artists’ who have gone solo after having spent time in a band, but I think the brief history lesson has been important for context, as with Warrior Jessi Frey turns heavily towards Velcra’s style. The dark synthpop sensibilities of her solo debut album Villainess are still there, but they are joined by pounding beats, heavy guitars and songwriting choices that remind me strongly of her old band. The end result is very reminiscent of 90s industrial music, but re-amped for today. 

While the style of the album might lean towards a style inspired by the past, the production side of things is modern, clear and powerful. The drums are snappy, the guitars have both great crunch and clarity, the synths are pristine and Jessi’s vocals sit at the center of attention without overwhelming the instrumentals. She demonstrates a rather broad range on the album, from whispering to screaming, though mostly staying in the clean range, pushing for a grittier tone when the songs need an extra push of urgency or energy. Overall, the album is sleek and powerful, but I feel that some of the tracks could have used a bit punchier kick drum for extra oomph. This is a minor quibble in the grand scheme of things. 

Thematically, the album seems to coalesce around the titular idea of being a Warrior of some sort. The mood of the album can be best described as dark but defiant, the instruments casting moody, downbeat and occasionally mysterious tones while the lyrics offer a more hopeful note. It’s a style that works really well. 

The idea of a “Warrior” takes many forms on this album. There are a lot of songs about survivorship, overcoming difficulties and facing an uncertain future. For example, Future Hackers deals with overcoming anxiety about the present day state of matters, the mixture of pounding riffs, driving percussion, futuristic arps and dramatic choirs offering an explosive backing track for Jessi’s vocals. Antifragile starts with the premise of seeing your dreams shattered and moves to a crescendo of coming back stronger from past failures. Choppy rhythms and staccato synths dominate the verses, while the choruses are backed by a sweeping riff. The ending sees the track build into a crushing wall of noise while Jessi repeats “I can take it” over and over again, going from whispers to screaming and offering the most powerful and memorable moment of the album. 

There are also more literal interpretations of the idea of being a warrior. We Don’t Need Another Hero is a cover of Tina Turner’s classic hit that she made for the Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome soundtrack. Jessi Frey’s version is decidedly less pop, going for a dramatic, somber-yet-hopeful, synth-orchestral take. Bloodsport offers a parade of curious characters who go to proverbial battle on the dancefloor. Jessi loans MC Raaka Pee of the Finnish industrial/party/jäger bomb metal band Turmion Kätilöt to deliver extra vocals. The themes and style on offer are definitely more on the Turmion Kätilö side, in other words, a fun industrial-tinted banger.  

For me, the album’s divergent ways of dealing with its central theme are however its biggest weakness. I like both We Don’t Need Another Hero and Bloodsport as individual songs, but they feel kind of out of place sandwiched between tracks that deal with really big, important and relevant topics in a way that feels very sincere and from the heart. I can understand their inclusion, and perhaps someone else might see them very differently from me. They do bring some variety and lightness to the album’s otherwise rather heavy themes.

Nevertheless, even with the thematic whiplash I get, this is an album that I enjoy greatly and it has been among my most listened to albums of the year. It’s one thing to make cool industrial rock bangers and nicely moody 90s industrial throwbacks, it’s another thing to do it with such talent and willingness to tackle difficult themes as she has demonstrated here. Warrior may be for me an album of valleys and peaks, but the peaks that are there are incredibly high, and the valleys aren’t even that low, simply more akin to stumbling upon something out of place on your journeys. 

I’m hardly writing this review with fresh ears, and the most-listened tracks from this album have acquired a kind of patina, or perhaps a moss layer, of lived emotions. The album-opening Future Hackers and the extremely powerful Antifragile have been on extremely heavy rotation for me ever since they came out. And indeed, those tracks in particular have helped me to live through some very tough times. More than being just a really good album that faithfully conjures vibes from 90s industrial music, the album is extremely meaningful to me. And there is a gap between good music and meaningful music that only a rare few bridge. Warrior manages to crystallize a certain “peak COVID” energy that I surely am not the only one to have lived through. Nothing else out there really captures the vibe of suddenly being shut off from the world, forced to rely on social media while watching your social networks wither and languish. And despite all of this, you somehow survive, find reasons to go on. It’s music for facing titanic challenges and coming back alive. This is the kind of music the world desperately needs. 

I had the opportunity to see Jessi Frey live recently during the Helsinki Industrial Festival pre-party. It was an extremely powerful experience, not only because she and her band kicked ass on stage. It was unusual to see so many people in Velcra shirts, the band still being dearly missed by some. I don’t know how Jessi Frey feels about people being nostalgic for her old band, but for me, it’s just a demonstration that great music and great musicians have no expiration date. I may have missed Velcra, the media phenomenon in my youth, but I got to hear some of the most impactful music I have experienced in recent history live. And let me tell you, it was amazing. We can’t go into the past, but we can take the best from it and build something new, something that resonates even more strongly than the past events and ideas we tend to be so nostalgic and fond off.

I don’t expect everyone to feel about this album the way I do, but I do recommend it without reservations to basically anyone and especially to people who like the 90s industrial style. I would also like to recommend Velcra’s last album Hadal, which I think is their best, and absolutely criminally underappreciated and very poorly known even in the industrial rock connoisseur circles.