The Block
EON is the fourth release from Finnish progressive thrash band Amendfoil. Having never heard of this band before receiving this album, I was quite intrigued by it, mainly because of the cover. But once I started to listen to it I knew that I was in for a real treat. Though classified by most as thrash metal, I tend to find Amendfoil airing on the side of progressive death metal, especially with this release.
The whole album is very short, only 11 minutes, and is a mix between and EP and a single. It starts off really heavy with great guitar work by Lassi Mäki-Kala or Juho Pelttari; I can’t tell who it is since they both play guitar. Lassi Mäki-Kala comes back later on vocals that remind me very much of Pain of Salvation. The vocals of Lassi Mäki-Kala are two parts. One of them is clean vocal style that he exhibits early on in the release, and then periodically throughout the album he debuts a harsher growl that isn’t half bad either. What I don’t get is why some people classify this as thrash metal. It has almost nothing to do with thrash, and is definitely progressive metal. You can especially hear it later in the album when the more acoustic sound comes in during “Eulogy”. In the bands own words they are “removing the biggest clichés of common metal band equation and replacing them with a handful of strong modern vocals with melodies and an organic classic rock spirit”. This certainly shines through on this release with great bass lines and some clear classic rock guitar work.
Another good thing about this album is the non-dependency on drums. Most metal bands these days rely on hard, heavy driven drums, but Amendfoil is much more guitar driven and clearly remove all modern metal clichés. The acoustic parts I mentioned before are clear indicators of this, and you can also tell the guitar driven spirit by the fact that two band members, Mäki-Kala and Juho Pelttari, play guitar. The production of this album is very clean, and well done for a self released album.
Coming into this album I had no idea who Amendfoil even was, but after listening to this great mix of progressive metal, death metal, and classic rock I’m definitely looking forward to their next release, which hopefully is a full length album. The release was a great teaser into this bands style and gets a 4.5 star rating from me.