Amorphis... blow?

[?]

They didn't even consider using Mehtä, because it was just a working title, but maybe another name would've made Sande happy

[aprilethereal]

I know, but I like the sound of it (although I have no idea how to pronounce it ), better than something cheesy like Shades Of Grey (or Gray, whatever) anyway.

[?]

The working title for the album itself was Black-Dick Swan (yes, it's true)

[aprilethereal]

Badass title for a badass album 

(yes, it's true)

too bad I totally suck at finnish 

[?]

The song working titles mentioned in the link are Tikkis, Meideni, Polkkis, Mehtalainen, Kissanpolkka, Funcadelic, Sakura and 7jako. Mostly some slang words ("meideni"=Maiden), but 7jako refers to 7/4 or 7/8 time signature and Kissanpolkka is "cat's polka".

[aprilethereal]

7jako refers to 7/4 or 7/8 time signature

wooo, Amorphis going progressive 

[?]

For those who want to hear some tr00 kvlt death metal, here's a live version of Pilgrimage from Darkness from 1991

A crappy clip of Privilege of Evil from the same year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir3OODS5G9Q

[MoraWintersoul]

I re-watched the docu on the DVD a few days ago and I kept swooning over baby Amorphis being unaware of their future influence on the metal world


And now that I think of it, they always had a good looking bassist in the lineup, Oppu and Niclas are total babes.

[?]

I like how even in the Tales... days Tomi K had a Pink Floyd shirt on

People have also pointed out that one of Oppu's trademark stage moves is stretching his knees - maybe that looks sexy?

[MoraWintersoul]

Yeah I loved that Floyd shirt, I want one just like that

I wouldn't know about sexy, but he's really handsome

[?]

Funnily enough, I just found this:



MIND = BLOWN

[MoraWintersoul]

I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE

[?]

I always thought they looked a bit alike, but not THAT alike Well, Dave has been a huge influence to both Esa and Tomi. After hearing Run Like Hell for the first time I was like "I see what you did there, Amorphis!" when I listened to Alone.

Too bad Tomi hasn't been able to play awesome Gilmour-influenced solos in Amorphis, or any solos for that matter. The lead at the end of Castaway and the solos he has played for Verenpisara have been really good, so hopefully we'll hear more of his leads in the future, although Esa is an excellent soloist.

[aprilethereal]

I actually think neither Esa nor Tomi are really great guitarists but they fit the band's style very well and some of their leads and guitar melodies are just

After hearing Run Like Hell for the first time I was like "I see what you did there, Amorphis!" when I listened to Alone.

Exactly my thoughts when I heard Alone for the first time 

[?]

From Amorphis' FB: "Massive church organs can be heard in Circle".

So in his both hands Sande had a massive organ

[MoraWintersoul]

Meow

[?]

Samples with Esa's comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbCj7cYk-Kg

It was obvious that the album will be heavier than the previous ones, but there also seems to be a stronger folk influence. Also, Amorphis + Ebow = me likes!

[aprilethereal]

Wooohooo excite 

EDIT: honestly I'm a bit worried that there are so many songs written by Sande on the album, since his compositions are usually the ones I find to be the weakest. And only one of the "regular" tracks is by Tomi K 

[?]

EDIT: honestly I'm a bit worried that there are so many songs written by Sande on the album, since his compositions are usually the ones I find to be the weakest. And only one of the "regular" tracks is by Tomi K 

I wouldn't call Sampo, Under a Soil & Black Stone, A Servant, Battle for Light and Song of the Sage weak Besides, he wrote 6 out of the 12 songs on TBOT, so there aren't as many compositions from him this time. However, I agree that Tomi K has written some great stuff and it's kind of sad that his songs end up being bonus tracks so often. In the Soundi interview Esa said that in a few of the bonus tracks Tomi wrote this time there's a really strong Finnish feel, and that he usually has a kind of cinematic approach in his songs.

BTW, it's Tomi K's birthday - he turns 40 today!

[aprilethereal]

Sampo and A Servant are the only songs of the ones you mentioned that I really enjoy. The others are (IMO of course) just alright and nothing more. "Just alright" for Amorphis standards obviously means that they are still good, but as I said earlier (IMO) amongst the weakest tracks. That "rule" doesn't really work for TBOT, since I also don't really enjoy the other songs from that album. It's actually the only one of their albums I can't really listen to all the way through cause I find it incredibly boring, which is really sad since the other albums with Tomi J were so fantastic. So I guess that the fact that Sande wrote that much for TBOT is one of the main reasons why that album is easily in my bottom 3 Amorphis albums (together with AU and FFTS).

[?]

I agree that TBOT is the weakest Joutsen-era Amorphis album - it became my favorite pretty quickly, but after some time I started to see some flaws in it, like the unnecessarily big amount of songs and the fact that they didn't really evolve with that release, although Crack in a Stone is pretty different from anything they've done before. It's still a good album though and has some great stuff.

I like Sande's songs a lot and he has written some of my all-time favorite Amorphis songs, like the ones I mentioned in the previous post. That said, he was also responsible for my least favorite songs on TBOT (some of which were pretty typical Amorphis tunes). I'm looking forward to hearing Into the Abyss - in an interview it was said that it's experimental and that the solos are really good!

Far from the Sun is easily the weakest Amorphis album due to its uninspired and lazy mood, but I love Am Universum. It took a lot of time to grow, but nowadays it's one of my favorites. The lack of catchy leads and melodies from Esa and Santeri and the absence of growls may turn some people off, but I think it's a really unique release and I like the experimenting Amorphis did on that album.

[aprilethereal]

They are all really good songwriters (much better that I'll ever be), and I'm not saying Sande is bad, but his songs are pretty much hit or miss for me most of the time.

I'm looking forward to hearing Into the Abyss - in an interview it was said that it's experimental and that the solos are really good!

Me too, I watched the trailer yesterday evening and woke up today with the melody of Into The Abyss playing in my head

[adace]

I'll probably be going to the pre-listening event tonight. I'll be sure to post a report when I come back although I'm not really sure what I can add now that all the reviews and samples are out.

Edit: Couldn't make it, some stuff came up. Oh well, it'll out be out soon enough.

[aprilethereal]

I'm currently listening to some more Amorphis to prepare for the release of Circle. Yesterday I put on Elegy and Tuonela. Elegy is still my favourite and probably one of my favourite albums of all time, but I really fell in love with Tuonela again. What an awesome album that one is

[?]

Tuonela is my second favorite album right behind Skyforger. The atmosphere of that album is just incredible and there are lots of brilliant tunes - the last 3 songs form one of the best 3-song runs I've ever heard. Tales and Elegy were really good too, but on Tuonela they matured a lot. Hopefully they'll play something from that album on the new tour...

BTW, has anyone else noticed that Jan plays the same fill in almost every song on The Karelian Isthmus? He wasn't that creative back then! I collected some timestamps where you can hear that fill (the same fill or some variations appear even more often on the album, but I think this list is pretty long already):

The Gathering 3.15
Warriors Trial 0.38, 2.10
Black Embrace 0.27, 2.17, 2.22
Exile... 0.14, 2.57
Misery Path 0.59, 1.04
Vulgar Necrolatry 0.06

Actually I think I would call TKI a cute death metal album - the music isn't overtly brutal and Tomi K's growls and the aforementioned drumming style by Jan add to the lack of brutality Basic death metal has always been too heavy for me, but I can listen to TKI somehow, although it has never been a favorite of mine.

[gazinwales]

I'm currently listening to some more Amorphis to prepare for the release of Circle. Yesterday I put on Elegy and Tuonela. Elegy is still my favourite and probably one of my favourite albums of all time, but I really fell in love with Tuonela again. What an awesome album that one is

Yup Elegy is my fave too, has just about everything. As good as it s, if they re-recorded it with Tomi J doing all the vox, could be better 
I put 'Far From The Sun', on in the car yesterday, didn't sound too bad at all, has some good moments.
I'm starting to slowly finally click with Skyforger too 

[aprilethereal]

Yup Elegy is my fave too, has just about everything. As good as it s, if they re-recorded it with Tomi J doing all the vox, could be better 

Exactly my thoughts. Elegy has some incredible songs like ...pretty much all of them (I'm not the biggest fan of Weeper On The Shore, but that's about it), but I always felt they could be so much better with decent production and vocals. Neither Tomi K nor Pasi are bad, but the Elegy songs sound incredible on Magic & Mayhem with Tomi J, especially My Kantele's 2010 version completely blows the original out of the water.
I still love the original, but I should have never listened to M&M since now I realise that Elegy is not as nearly perfect as I thought earlier and that makes me a bit sad 

EDIT: It's weird that I prefer the Elegy songs with Tomi J on vocals but don't nearly like the songs from TFTTL and Tuonela with Tomi J as much as the originals.

[?]

The only Elegy songs they haven't played live since Tomi J joined are Weeper on the Shore and the acoustic My Kantele, so it wouldn't be a far-fetched idea in itself to re-record the whole album, but they did the 4 remakes on M&M already, so unfortunately it won't happen. A lot of the clean vocal parts on Elegy are also quite hard to sing - for example in this clip of Elegy you can hear Tomi struggle in the chorus. However, he nailed The Orphan here and I hope they'll bring that song back on the new tour, especially considering that it hasn't been played in 5 years.

[aprilethereal]

Regarding My Kantele: If they still play it the way they did for the DVD, they combine both versions live (as they also did on M&M), so they  have kinda played the acoustic one live a well.

I normally think of rerecordings pretty negatively, but if there are two albums that would profit IMMENSELY from being redone, they are Elegy and WDADU.

[?]

I know about the My Kantele thing - I've seen them play it 3 times and the outro has always been there. However, when Pasi was in the band they always played it in the acoustic form without growls. But yeah, the new version is a nice combination

From a productional point of view I think the first 2 albums would be in a bigger need of re-recording - the debut is pretty raw and on Tales you can't hear the other bass drum properly in the double bass parts. I think a good compromise would've been to make M&M a few songs longer, maybe even a double CD including all the songs from the first 3 records they've played live with Tomi J.

[aprilethereal]

The combination of both versions is the main reason why I love the 2010 version of My Kantele so much.

To be honest I don't think a rerecorded Tales would come out well. The atmosphere of the original is pretty much unmatchable. That includes its flaws like the ones you mentioned and the pretty horrible clean vocals. Its far from being perfect and I really enjoy the M&M versions, but I can't imagine a whole album.

I don't really care for TKI so I rarely listen to either version of its songs.

[aprilethereal]

The Wanderer is available for download:
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00CAWW9AU
https://itunes.apple.com/de/album/the-wanderer/id630598454

[gazinwales]

Leakage...
But I'm going to try and hold out for my CD from Japan 

[adace]

Just finished my first listen.

Such an incredible album. I'm seriously impressed. There's really not a dull moment on the whole album.

Epic stuff!

[aprilethereal]

I'm going to wait till my CD arrives. At least I hope I'll be able to do so

Just finished my first listen.

Such an incredible album. I'm seriously impressed. There's really not a dull moment on the whole album.

Epic stuff!

Which songs did impress you the most?