Amorphis

UMUR wrote: ^Dream on Karl, Dream on....

A quick peak at the new release shattered all remaining hope

I'm a big fan of the Pasi Koskinen albums and EPs, I've followed them since 'Am Universum'.
I'm not too fond of the first two albums. But ok, I'm not to keen on Death metal in general so that might explain it.

I find the Joutsen albums good but somewhat formulaic. Hope the new one will be a clear-cut Prog album, as I can no longer handle the absurdity of Amorphis not being in Prog-Metal on PA.




Edited by bonnek - 07 Sep 2011 at 8:14am

^I hear you there. Don�t go there if you are a newcommer to the band

Well, very nice responses. I guess I'm the only one here who has ALL their albums, from Privilege of Evil to Beginning of Times. I discovered them like 16 years ago, while listening to a death metal compilation by Nuclear Blast/Relapse called "Death III: it's just the beginning". Among dozens of horrendous tracks, a few were quite good, and the best was "Forgotten Sunrise" by this unknown Finnish band with the weird name. As I love Sibelius (in classical music, my favorite type of music since I was a child) I wanted to check how Finnish metal sounded like. A few months later I saw their video for "Against Widows" in MTV of all places and I decided to buy "Elegy". If you want a description of that album, check my incredibly-subjective-and-not-impartial review here in MMA .

As described, Amorphis has a cold sound, unique of them, a mix of a few styles. Their first album (EP) is quite horrible, but The Karelian Ishtmus shows some promise already. Tales From a Thousand Lakes, where the legendary track came from, is already a little masterpiece of melodic death. But Elegy really changed things. That album is one of my favorites of all time (again, my review shows the love), with enormous amounts of melody and Finnish inspiration. In this album the cold-as-ice vocals of Pasi Koskinen made their debut (I liked them a lot). Tuonela is their best though, a masterpiece with clear Floydian-Hakwind influences, reviewed also by yours truly. Am Universum continues the trend and Far Off the Sun represents the first real slip in quality. Out goes Koskinen, in comes Joutsen, a better singer technically (who can do his own growls) but I still long for Koskinen vocals. Eclipse a d Silent Waters were good albums in typical Scandinavian death metal vein but it was Skyforger (again, reviewed) which brought them almost back to the level of Elegy and Tuonela. Their most recent has failed to ignite the same passion in me but it's a grower, I hope.

Sounds like a good band, I'll have to look into them. ^Those videos you posted before where pretty cool, too.

I�m sure Teo will pop in when he has the time and if not this thread spawned a bit of forum activity and that�s always positive

The first one is probably their least interesting album IMO.

UMUR wrote: IMO Amorphis has very little to do with melodeath. I like the term epic melodic metal better.

that is comforting

but Amorphis melodies are muuuuuuuuch deeper and though out then any (of the few) melodeaf bands I have heard, it is very dence and 70s ish, progish, so its not like suggarcute melodies with raspy growls but layerd melodies with awesome varied singing from a rich tenor voice to a deep growler, and some intence riffing along the lines, (shuggara shuggara shuggara riffs. they are MUCH more sofisticated then In Flames ( and In flames is kinda sofisticated but not right thar). Amorphis melds the molodies with 70s richness

i can give uno example monsiour, some wonderfull vocal arrangement in the choires,


i also must show thee the majestic brootal side of (the only album I have of them for the moment, since their earlyer albums are much more death metalish)




Edited by Balthamel - 23 Jun 2011 at 5:37am

Hmmm interesting.
Well...I'm iffy with melodeath, all depends on how they do it though you know I am a huge Opeth fan.