Amorphis: Queen Of Time

AMORPHIS: QUEEN OF TIME (2018)

1) The Bee; 2) Message In The Amber; 3) Daughter Of Hate; 4) The Golden Elk; 5) Wrong Direction; 6) Heart Of The Giant; 7) We Accursed; 8) Grain Of Sand; 9) Amongst Stars; 10) Pyres On The Coast; 11*) As Mountains Crumble; 12*) Brother And Sister; 13*) Honeyflow.

General verdict: Is «stagnating in pomp» a better way to go than «stagnating in humility»?

We interrupt our regular schedule of events to bring you this brief update: as of May 2018, the band Amorphis is still very much alive — and not only that, but with their old bass player, Olli-Pekka Laine, returning in the place of Niclas Etelävuori, this is the first time in more than twenty years that the original lineup has reconvened in its entirety (with the continuing addition of Tomi Joutsen on vocals). In all honesty, though, I cannot think of any serious theoretical conclusions to be drawn from that fact — except that old-time fans will probably be happy for the live shows. Because other than that, Queen Of Time is just another Amorphis album.

Re-reading my brief account of Under The Cloud, I am (not) surprised to see that all the brief notes made on it apply equally well to Queen Of Time. Again, it is produced by Jens Bogren. Again, it has a significant proportion of growling vocals, mixed in with clean singing, and again, there is a female guest on one track — this time, they involve no less than Anneke van Giers­bergen (of The Gathering), but in the context of the album, she is really no better or worse than Aleah Stanbridge. Again, there is a straightforward hybrid between melodic death metal and pipe-led Celtic dance tracks (ʽMessage In The Amberʼ), and more such motives crop up in the intros and intermissions of other songs as well (ʽWe Accursedʼ). However, in contrast with the previous album, there are no piano-dominated tunes at all, and not a single title coincides with the name of a Taylor Swift pop hit — can you believe this?

It is quite telling that even the most positive accounts of the record that I have consulted have little, if anything, to say about the individual aspects of any of the songs — at best, it is all written in a «yes, it is Amorphis, you know what to expect, if you like that style, you will like the album» style. At the very best, it is, «oh wow, look, there is a guest saxophone player on ʽDaughter Of Hateʼ!» (spoiler: he is audible for about fifteen seconds out of six minutes). But I am in an okay mood today, and so I will confirm that at least the production and playing are totally professional and that there are no technical grudges of any sorts that I could throw against any of the songs. It is simply that the record in no way added anything to my knowledge, understanding, and enjoy­ment of Amorphis.

Amorphis: Under The Red Cloud

AMORPHIS: UNDER THE RED CLOUD (2015)

1) Under The Red Cloud; 2) The Four Wise Ones; 3) Bad Blood; 4) The Skull; 5) Death Of A King; 6) Sacrifice; 7) Dark Path; 8) Enemy At The Gates; 9) Tree Of Ages; 10) White Night; 11*) Come The Spring; 12*) Winter's Sleep.

Yes, the clock is still ticking! It's 2015 now, and here is another Amorphis album that sounds like any other Amorphis album. And you know what? I'm kind of tired to issuing one thumbs down after another rating to all these records — on one hand, blue color is expensive, and on the other, there's something to be said about sheer tenacity. When we are gone, every last bit of us, and even Keith Richards finally bites the dust, there'll still be a two-year waiting period for the next Amorphis album. Finland forever! Uralic peoples rule.

To keep matters short, here's a brief splotch of information. Under The Red Cloud was pro­duced by «legendary» producer Jens Bogren, who used to work with all sorts of progressive and fantasy metal bands, from Opeth to Amon Amarth and beyond. The record places a little more emphasis on growling death metal vocals than the previous few, but still features plenty of clean singing, including even a guest contribution from female guest performer Aleah Stanbridge on the last track. There is one hybrid between melodic death metal and flute-led Celtic dance track (ʽTree Of Agesʼ), one mid-East-influenced song (ʽEnemy At The Gatesʼ), one song dominated by a piano melody behind all the guitar distortion and growling (ʽDark Pathʼ), and one Taylor Swift cover (ʽBad Bloodʼ). Okay, that last bit is not really true. And I'm not even sure if it were fun if it were true, but I'm really desperate here.

Very likely, there are some «new» riffs here, but to me, it just feels like I've already heard each of these songs about a dozen times, and even the little specific details singled out above are not particularly impressive — it's just that all the other songs are even less distinctive. Get this if your admiration for Circle matches your adulation of The Beginning Of Times and your adoration of Skyforger. To me, it's all equally interchangeable and forgettable, a pathetic overblown formula that ran out of sense already in the previous century.

Amorphis: Circle

AMORPHIS: CIRCLE (2013)

1) Shades Of Gray; 2) Mission; 3) The Wanderer; 4) Narrow Path; 5) Hopeless Days; 6) Nightbird's Song; 7) Into The Abyss; 8) Enchanted By The Moon; 9) A New Day; 10*) Dead Man's Dream.

Apparently, Amorphis work around the clock now — their internal algorithm is programmed to print out the results every two years, and thus, here is yet another set of melodic death metal an­thems that sounds every bit as loud, proud, and doom-laden as every other set of melodic death metal anthems they had released since... well, you know.

One thing that I have noticed is that, by this time, even some of the veteran fans on Internet message boards started to sort of fiddle around and grumble about how preciously few new sen­sations they were offered. This may have to do with an important change in style, which might not be noticeable immediately, but whose surreptitious effects may be harming the listener's sys­tem from the very start — the album is extremely hot on guitars and quite modest on keyboards. Most of the songs drop the «wimpy» keyboard intros that were quite prominent, for instance, on The Beginning Of Times, and dive straight into battle. Santeri Kallio is still there alright, but he is intentionally pushed into the background, as if Amorphis decided to make a «hardcore» album all of a sudden.

But the decision does not do much good. Essentially, all the songs simply sound even more like each other now than they did before — dissipate your attention a bit and you will never know which one is which. Granted, some of the riffs are more memorable than others... and some are less memorable than others... and... and... okay, the flute is back in ʽNarrow Pathʼ, so prominent­ly, in fact, that one could take the song for a Jethro Tull circa Songs From The Wood outtake, re­done in a grinding heavy metal arrangement. (There is even more flute — in fact, a whole delirious Ian Anderson-style solo — in the middle of ʽNightbird's Songʼ as well).

Other than that, as usual, the album is undescribable in non-technical terms, because each single riff aims more or less at the same emotional goals that Amorphis have pursued since the dawn of time. Mind you, they aren't bad riffs: on the whole, this is not the dullest Amorphis album ever — Skyforger is probably worse — but if the band's concept of rethinking their sound is really con­fined to ideas like «let's cut down on the keyboards a little bit», this is not even funny, and just goes to show how deep the rut is.

I actually wish more of the tracks here were like the bonus inclusion: ʽDead Man's Dreamʼ breaks in with a top-notch death metal riff, growling vocals, and speed — something that is completely lacking on the main body of the album (which is probably why they relegated it to bonus status, so as not to disrupt the conceptuality). ʽNarrow Pathʼ, with its Celtic dance focus, and this thing, with its speedy thump, are pretty much the only mood-breakers on the record. But yeah, at least these guys can still play, that is for certain.

An interesting technical note is that this is pretty much the band's first album (in a long time, at least) not to draw its lyri­cal inspiration directly from Kalevala — this time, there is some sort of «original» concept about a struggling loser empowered by a spiritual guide and, well, whatever. In reality, this makes about as much difference as the downtoning of the keyboards — big-time fans will take notice, and as for the rest of us, who really cares these days? The good thing is, with these guys still steering the ship with firm hands and iron vocal cords, good old Finland probably has nothing to fear but fear itself.

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Amorphis: The Beginning Of Times

AMORPHIS: THE BEGINNING OF TIMES (2011)

1) Battle For Light; 2) Mermaid; 3) My Enemy; 4) You I Need; 5) Song Of The Sage; 6) Three Words; 7) Re­for­ma­tion; 8) Soothsayer; 9) On A Stranded Shore; 10) Escape; 11) Crack In A Stone; 12) Beginning Of Time.

This fourth volume of Eclipse is marginally more interesting than Skyforger (mumbled the un­comfortable reviewer, as much in need of new words as he was in need of new emotions), for the following two reasons:

(1) approximately one minute into 'Song Of The Sage', the good old sludge is cut down, and in­ its place we see a nice little flute-driven passage, one that is not so much influenced by classic Jethro Tull as it is directly or almost directly lifted from some Tull song — but it still sounds nice enough on its own, next to all the growling vocals and shit;

(2) 'Three Words', I think, is as close to a really good song as this band ever got to in the last ten years of its existence. The stop-and-start structure of the melody, with its thumping («earth-bur­rowing») riff, is attractive, as is the modestly catchy, singalong chorus, even though the latter may sound a bit too commercial and slick to the demanding listener.

Other than that, I am still not able to warm up to the band's post-Ad Universum sound. All I can say is that, with each new album since 2003, they have been trying to improve upon the melo­dicity of the content, so that, with The Beginning Of Times, I am beginning to think I could al­most end up liking some of it, had they bothered to return their production values to what they used to be around the times of Elegy. No dice. A big thank you to Iikka Kahri for providing oc­casional flute and sax support, and to Netta Dahlberg for adding female vocal harmonies in a few spots, but this just isn't enough.

So let me simply pass the mike over to an anonymous reviewer at Amazon, whose admiration for the album was so uncontainable, it had to spill over in poetic form: "Skyforger blew me away / I can listen to it all day / But it was time for something new / The Beginning Of Times is Sky­forger Part 2". The innocence and, at the same time, inevitability of the oxymoron in the last two lines, I must say, «blew me away» far more than anything on this record. Still, it did not suffice to save the album from the usual thumbs down. Bring on more flute!

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Amorphis: Skyforger

AMORPHIS: SKYFORGER (2009)

1) Sampo; 2) Silver Bride; 3) From The Heaven Of My Heart; 4) Sky Is Mine; 5) Majestic Beast; 6) My Sun; 7) Highest Star; 8) Skyforger; 9) Course Of Fate; 10) From Earth I Rose.

This third volume of Eclipse is marginally more interesting — because the level of sludge has been slightly lowered in favor of slightly more distinguishable melodicity. In fact, 'Sampo' begins the record with a serious promise. A spiraling piano riff, a sharp guitar tone doubling the melody, and suddenly even the obligatory crackling of the thunderstormy metallic accompaniment be­comes more tolerable, although I could still live without it.

From there and onwards, though, there are no surprises. Except, perhaps, a more significant em­phasis on growling vocals — which is unfortunate, because, at this point, Tomi Joutsen does not merely sound like our friend the Cookie Monster: he sounds like Cookie Monster with acute la­rynx inflammation, and, considering that these vocal parts usually arrive at «climactic» (heaviest) moments of each given song, the effect is unintentionally hilarious. (As much as I have trained myself to accept death metal vocals as part of the game, the training is still only effective when [a] the music is not deadly boring and [b] the death metal vocals really tend to sound like death, com­pletely pitchless. Skyforger offers no such deal).

At one point, I intentionally embarked upon the quest to find something worth writing about — my prize was discovering a little bit of flute melody on 'Highest Star', like a pale shadow of what it used to be on 'Rusty Moon' from Tuonela, because this time it sounds fairly wimpy even du­ring the quiet parts, and fades out completely on the loud, sludgy ones. Nothing else. There is no­thing else to write about. Yes, there are some good riffs, but the godawful production simply mas­sa­cres them. If this is metal, I expect at least one or two songs that kick butt like it used to be with 'Better Unborn', without the muffling noise. If this is progressive stuff, bring back the flutes and the Mellotrons and the whatnot, give me some frickin' diversity.

Unfortunately, at this point, what with the small, but surprisingly loyal, bunch of Tomi Joutsen's fans, throwing their thumbs up every time Amorphis gets loud, it already looks like the formula stuck pretty hard: the band that, for a brief moment, was on the front line of merging extreme forms of metal with prog, has opted to retreat to a safer place, one in which all the songs are free­ly interchangeable, but which is cozy enough to offer the necessary protection. If you loved Si­lent Waters, you will love Skyforger (good luck telling the songs apart, though); otherwise, do not even begin to bother. Thumbs down.

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Amorphis: Silent Waters

AMORPHIS: SILENT WATERS (2007)

1) Weaving The Incantation; 2) A Servant; 3) Silent Waters; 4) Towards And Against; 5) I Of Crimson Blood; 6) Her Alone; 7) Enigma; 8) Shaman; 9) The White Swan; 10) Black River; 11*) Sign.

Here is what I think happened. The mainstream metal press liked the direction that Amorphis took with Eclipse and spewed forth lots of positive reviews. The band members liked the direc­tion that the mainstream metal press took with their reviews, and spewed forth Eclipse Vol. 2, without changing a doggone thing. For only the second time in their career, the band gave us two albums that sounded completely identical. But at least Tuonela and Ad Universum had all their little musical flourishes that made each album enjoyable.

Silent Waters, on the other hand, shares all the flaws of Eclipse without ever trying to improve on them. Yes, lovers of Finnish folklore may be interested in following the songs, because, once again, they draw their atmospheric and textual inspiration from the Kalevala, this time writing a song cycle centered around the story of the death and resurrection of Lemminkäinen, the big Her­cules-type hero of the epic poem. It's a fine story in its own rights, but one that, the way I see it, deserves to be set to much more interesting music.

I admit, however, that it may not so much be the actual melodies here that I dislike so much as the overall setting. Several of the songs still feature well-crafted riffs; but they are all encrusted into this awful noise setting which is supposed to add power, but, in my case at least, adds nothing but distraction — and an occasional headache. Somehow, in the past, these guys were able to get by on riffpower alone; what the heck made them think every goddamn song must have this intermi­nable bland «roaring» at its foundation?

Also, as much as Kallio tries to help by adding classical piano passages to songs, it does not work, because the piano only very rarely acts as an integral component of the song. At best, e. g. on the title track, we start out with a nice minor key intro, then, with the guitars breaking their way in, the piano recedes into the background and becomes just a moody echo effect to all the roaring. At worst, you just cannot hear the piano at all, even when it's actually there. And are there any other keyboards played? If there were, I don't remember.

A few songs sort of «stand out» by employing user-friendlier production techniques. On 'Towards Ang Against', for instance, the band toys with electronics and danceable drum beats, but the ef­fect is, to put it mildly, rather questionable. Not sure if these things work so well with the song's dark riff and growling vocals. For some reason, «Rob Zombie» and similar silly commercialized crap comes to mind. Not the most correct association, perhaps, but there it is, and it is not wel­come. 'Enigma' is the only song on the album to be carried throughout on a folksy acoustic pat­tern, but for some reason it also bores the hell out of me — maybe it's because I've heard that pat­tern a thousand times already?

Thumbs down. At this juncture, it almost looks like Amorphis have just passed the point of no return: a band that, at one time, almost invented an entirely new type of music, now content them­selves with recycling a dull, predictable formula. If anything, it belies and belittles their own fri­ckin' name. I'd suggest a rechristening as Cacomorphis, and choosing Captain Hook as their mas­cot, but it's not as if I'm getting paid for this, so whatever.

P.S. If you are a metalhead, don't take my word on the album by any means — apparently, most fans just love the record. Perhaps years of listening to heavy music result in one's ears naturally develo­ping some sort of sludge filter. Me, I'm still in training.

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Amorphis: Eclipse

AMORPHIS: ECLIPSE (2006)

1) Two Moons; 2) House Of Sleep; 3) Leaves Scar; 4) Born From Fire; 5) Under A Soil And Black Stone; 6) Perkele (The God Of Fire); 7) The Smoke; 8) Same Flesh; 9) Brother Moon; 10) Empty Opening.

Unquestionably a jump back to better form here. For some reason, with Koskinen's departure, the music is once again credited to individual members of the band rather than the collective «Amor­phis» — with the lion's share distributed between Holopainen and keyboardist Santeri Kallio. The lyrics, once again returning us to motives from the Kalevala, are all properly credited to new vo­calist Tomi Joutsen, on whose issue I am undecided. The trick is that his normal singing voice is not very interesting, lacking the sharpness and perkiness of Koskinen; but he also does some growling, and does it damn well — he actually manages to sing while growling, with real vocal modulation. Besides, he switches to growling only in the appropriate spots, justifying the practice as a normal artistic trick rather than a silly obligatory trademark.

Musically, Eclipse tries to reintroduce progressive elements that had been so completely squan­dered on Far From The Sun in favor of noise, noise, and more noise. Unfortunately, «tries» is an appropriate description, because the final result is still very far removed from the level of ad­venturousness that characterized Elegy and even Tuonela. Those albums had nothing approa­ch­ing the flatness of such numbers as 'Born From Fire', which just drags on like a dead weight — until, at the very end, the boys get a bright idea to overdub a folk dance-style lead part on top of the boring rhythm chords. Which is something like thirty seconds out of a four-minute tune. And this pretty much summarizes my entire feelings about the record.

Essentially, the quieter these songs are, the better they work: my favorite is 'The Smoke', built around a simple, but impressive seven-note piano riff from Kallio — but it remains exciting only as long as the guitars are kept low enough to let you hear the riff, or the song degenerates into boring noise. 'Leaves Scar' has a fine, poetic intro, then steps into martial noise territory, of which there is simply too much on the song for me to lump it into the «high creativity» category. And so on and on: change is very much welcome, but way too much sludge remains for the change to bear significant importance.

Worst of all, Eclipse does not have either a convincing beginning or a convincing ending. 'Two Moons' may be carried by one of the most complex riff patterns on the entire record, but it is nei­ther as memorable or as properly epic as 'Day Of Your Beliefs'. And the sadness and despair of 'Empty Opening' is way too mild — it is simply not enough to choose a minor tonality and then decide that your instruments will do all the work on their own. What's up with all that bland phra­sing? What's up with all the slushy power chords? We know this band is capable of perfectly well strung note sequences — is it just a matter of well strung note sequences not sounding loud enough? What about that search for identity?

Thus, at its best, Eclipse seems like an honest attempt to pull themselves out of the rut, successful in spots but, overall, a disappointment. The change of vocalist gives only a marginally fresh angle (at least, it could have been worse), and none of the individual songs reach classic status (well, maybe with the lone exception of the album's most aggressive tune — 'Perkele', on which they manage to hit upon a winning combination of growling vocals and ultra-black guitar). The only ray of light comes from realizing that they haven't given up on trying to recapture the magic — although, the way I see it, an obvious first step would be to start writing riff-based rather than sludge- and drone-based music again. Thumbs down. Keep in mind, however, that many fans regard Eclipse as an awesome master-comeback, something I don't hear at all — but that's just me, your local promoter of American Idol.

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