SPINEFEAST AT SEA: THE BEST AND WORST THINGS ABOUT GOING TO FINLAND FOR A METAL CRUISE

Between cheaper prices for European beer and, uh, three-dollar cups of coffee, traveling is usually full of highs and lows without much in between. As such, when Revolver Associate Editor Kory Grow went to Helsinki, Finland, for the Spinefeast at Sea 2009 concert cruise from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia, the choppy waves in the Gulf of Finland weren’t the only ups and downs he experienced. Here’s his list of the best and worst things about taking a metal cruise:

IN HELSINKI

Best Signs on the Way into Helsinki From the Airport: TECHNOPOLIS (which I can only imagine is the most badass set of music cops around or the worst Greek-named city in Europe) and BAUHAUS (not in reference to the Peter Murphy-fronted goth-rock band or German art school, but something similar to Home Depot)

Best Place to Buy Deep Purple CDs (in Probably the Whole World): Music Hunter in Helsinki. The store had an entire fixture dedicated to Deep Purple-related CDs. Who knew Joe Lynn Turner was so popular?

Coolest Roadside Fake Store: God’s Gas (brought to you by the Blood Covenant Brothers). OK!

Most Metal (and, Incidentally, the Most Famous) Painting in Atheneum, the Art Museum: The Wounded Angel, by Hugo Simberg. Whether you feel shame from it or something more voyeuristic, you’re not feeling good. And what’s more metal than a “wounded angel”?

Most Pagan Metal Painting in Atheneum, the Art Museum: Aino Myth, Triptych, by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. Yo, is that the Korpiklaani dude accosting that naked maiden?

Most Metal Finnish Tradition: Bear claws, not of the pastry variety. In pagan Finland, parents put bear claws under sleeping children’s pillows to keep them from crying in the night. And, if that wasn’t awesome enough, young girls kept bear claws in their pockets to become “more amorous,” according to a pamphlet at the Finnish National Museum.