Sarcofagus, the godfathers of Finnish heavy metal, fronted by filmmaker and guitarist Kimmo Kuusniemi, is re-releasing a limited edition of their 2007 Core Values album.

"Core Values has been off the market for 13 years. The album was, as the name indicates, lyrically, a very dark look into our society. In 13 years, none of the issues have gotten better, on the contrary things are getting worse," says Kuusniemi.

Core Values was completed in 2004 and released originally in 2007. Says Kuusniemi: "I was very busy working on an international TV series, so I had to give away the distribution of the album. Core Values received good reviews, but not enough was done to sell it. I pulled it out of the market in less than a year’s time."

In November 2019, Kuusniemi recorded a video message about the Core Values release and his thoughts about his upcoming album. 

"My albums have always had social commentary as many of my films have. I had come to the conclusions on the video long before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, but now the message of  Core Values seems more accurate than ever”.

The CD release is a limited edition featuring the original 2004 print covers that were never used, and the CDs will be numbered and autographed.  They are only available from the Sarcofagus website here.

Check out the promotional lyric video for the Core Values release, and a sample of a new song "Sampo" below.

As a bonus track for the re-release of Core Values, Kuusniemi releases the first new track from his upcoming solo album, Sampo. “The new album is also tied to a film project.

Core Values Lyrical Promo and New Song 2020 from Kimmo Kuusniemi on Vimeo.

A Finnish heavy metal pioneer, Kimmo Kuusniemi lives in the UK and is film maker by trade. He is the director and producer of hundreds of corporate, social and music videos, among them The Promised Land of Heavy Metal (2008), a full-length international documentary about Finland’s heavy metal scene. On the side, he has always done non-profit work, e.g. the music video and extended single “Dream On” for the World Wide Fund for Nature International, a project that made Music Television headlines for a week and was the first Finnish music project to break the MTV threshold. 

"I did that in 1991. Now, 29 years later, here in UK, we have finally started to talk about environmental issues. We had that 30 years ago in Finland… In fact, as a music maker, I have gotten bored of lyrics with message, most of it has been sung time after time anyways. Hence, my next album will have no lyrics;" Kuusniemi says, smiling mysteriously.