There’s something about the raw cold of Finland that makes its way into the music—something real, sharp-edged, stripped of excess. Earlier this year, standing in the heavy quiet of Ruka, not far from Oulu, I felt that same weight. A stillness before the storm. But Kirot doesn’t do stillness. Their third recording, Kaasu Pohjaan, kicks the door in.
Released online in November 2024 and on tape via Electric Alaska and Foxhole Productions in February 2025, this is a hardcore record sharpened into a weapon. Short, fast, direct. The lyrics don’t just call out injustice; they refuse to let it sink into the background.
Born from the intersections of Oulu’s punk and hip-hop scenes, Kirot took shape in 2021 when Nuusa (Seurat) envisioned a dual-vocalist hardcore band.
Henkka, a rapper with roots in hardcore, was already on board, and after a chance meeting in a ceramics class, Anttoni joined. Guitarist Iiro, a longtime collaborator of Anttoni, followed, and the lineup was eventually solidified with drummer Hene.
Their first self-released recording dropped in late 2021, and by the following summer, they had earned a spot at Rumo Punk Fest and Hässäkkäpäivät, crucial DIY punk/hardcore gatherings.
But change came fast. Hene stepped down, and Niku (Seurat, Deathlag) filled in. A second recording arrived in early 2023, but as soon as momentum built, Henkka left, forcing another reinvention. Within hours, Eetu (Nistikko, Letterbombs, Qwälen) was recruited. The band wasted no time, performing their first show with the new lineup in Oulu’s Tukikohta by June 2023 and expanding into Helsinki, Tampere, and Jyväskylä.
Kirot recorded their third release in spring 2024 with longtime collaborator Mikko and, for the first time, honed a clearer identity.
The result is Kaasu Pohjaan (“pedal to the metal”), released digitally in November 2024 and on tape via Electric Alaska and Ketunkolo Records in February 2025. It’s short, fast, and relentless—d-beat, crust, and metallic hardcore sharpened into direct impact.
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The band doesn’t just scream into the void. There’s no nihilistic ‘fuck everything’ here. Kirot’s message is about liberation, empathy, and equality, a necessary response to Finland’s right-wing government and global conservative regression. “It’s easy to fall into despair, but we should take action instead,” Anttoni says.
2025 will see Kirot’s first international shows, a compilation appearance, and more recordings, all self-produced with a growing clarity of vision. It’s fast, it’s urgent, and it matters. The world is burning, and Kirot refuses to stand still.
Here’s the full track by track breakdown, by Nuusa and Eetu:
Kaasu pohjaan (“Pedal to the Metal”)
Nuusa: This song reflects an intense existential and political crisis in which the individual faces experiences of alienation, oppression and resistance. Through surreal and violent imagery, it critiques systems of domination, challenges fear-based obedience, and envisions a beautiful liberation through struggle, transformation and collective survival. The text is both a warning and a call to action: increased awareness can lead to change, but only if the fear of outrage does not prevent action.
The chorus “pidät väkisin kiinni / antaudu / luovuta / kaasu pohjaan” (“you hold on by force / surrender / give up / pedal to the metal”) reflects a confrontation between restraint and liberation. The invitations to “surrender, give up” are juxtaposed with “pedal to the metal”, which attempts to suggest an act of radical defiance – instead of submitting, the scream accelerates into an unknown, anarchic future.
Pakotettuja uskomaan (“Forced to believe”)
Eetu: We have been taught to believe in a better future, which is of course a great thing, but things don’t change with faith alone. Finland is one of the most racist countries in Europe and we have a right-wing government that is doing nothing about it. We need to stop believing and take action.
Tanssi (“Dance”)
Eetu: “Our house is on fire, but we still dance.” I get frustrated with this humanity that doesn’t seem to care about anything around them. There are bodies on every corner, but it is not our business to collect them. There will be nothing left for future generations. Yet we just dance.
Linnut (“Birds”)
Eetu: The birds no longer sing, they scream in pain. We need everyone’s help to make change happen. It’s time to listen to each other and work together.
Leusden
Eetu: Leusden was a Dutch West Indies Company slave ship. Its sinking in January 1738 is thought to be the greatest single loss of life of its kind in the Atlantic slave trade. The crew deliberately nailed shut the hatches on to the deck so that the other slaves imprisoned below could not escape. Between 664 and 702 people died below deck, either from drowning or suffocation. I wanted to honor their souls with this song.
Susi (“Wolf”)
Eetu: The boy who cried wolf is a known tale all around. For me, this song represents a certain kind of imposter syndrome that I sometimes experience. Why do I have the right to have my voice heard, even though I’m not special in any way?
Kaiken totaalinen pimennys (“Total eclipse of Everything”)
Nuusa: The title of the song envisions a complete reset – the overturning of existing social foundations. Something new to be born must be built from the ground up. The imagery combines destruction with rebirth, presenting a revolutionary moment where everything is thrown into darkness so that something new can emerge. But this ‘revolutionary moment’ doesn’t mean something that happens in the distant future, it’s happening here and now, in everyday life, where people are thinking and acting differently and are creative in their resistance.
The text also acknowledges that the road to liberation is not easy or without pain, echoing the words of the Spanish anarchist Isabel Mesa Delgado: “Anarchism is a beautiful path, though very rough”.
Luonnollinen selitys (“A Natural explanation”)
Nuusa: As part of my doctoral research, I took a gender studies course at a university on the creation of hierarchies between humans, non-human species and nature, and how we can dismantle these hierarchies. Although I have explored many of these themes in my lyrics before, this text was particularly inspired by this course.
The main idea is that dismantling oppression requires attacking all systems of domination at once, whether they manifest in property, class, race, gender, nationalism, etc.
No one is without agency: People do not just passively accept power, but often, especially in the West, actively participate in their own subjugation. We internalize and reproduce power structures in our everyday lives.
Continued below…
The way I understand the concept of ‘chaos’ has been very creative and liberating for me, whether it’s making hardcore punk, questioning and learning from hierarchies in everyday life, or even doing academic research. This text expresses a critique of hierarchy, ownership and social conditioning while envisioning a world free of imposed structures and the metaphysical arrival of ‘chaos’. The text moves from a diagnosis of oppression to a radical unmaking of reality itself, culminating in a state of pure, undefined possibility. Rather than offering a blueprint for a new system, it celebrates the liberation found in the absence of one – which I see as the ultimate expression of anarchist thought. The final lines of the song embrace a vision of radical openness – a world without fixed identities, boundaries or predefined roles, where the unfamiliar is welcomed rather than feared.
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