Caskets Open are one of those bands that not only plays a throwback style, or in this case an odd amalgam of styles, they're a band that feels throwback. The move towards busy composition and complex, layered production hasn't effected these Finns. Each part of their sound is stripped to it's essentials, each instrument given space to be irreducibly itself, including Timo Ketola's vocals, which spend most of the album in clean, slightly affected territory a la Danzig, but occasionally cut loose in snarling hardcore shouts. The production on Concrete Realms of Pain is warm and full, with a mix that keeps the buzzing bass guitar lines clearly identifiable throughout. - Angry Metal Guy
