Description

For anyone familiar with Amorphis, the use of Finnish folklore as lyrical and musical inspiration will be very familiar from their earlier albums. "Tales from the Thousand Lakes" and "Elegy", both absolute classics in their own right, utilised verses from "The Kalevala" and "The Kanteletar" respectively. This offered an positively fascinating insight into Finnish culture and heritage, and gave the albums a real sense of weight. After Elegy, they veered from this style into more proggy territory, with the excellent "Tuonela" and even experimented with saxophone jazz on "Am Universum", which I formore… one thoroghly enjoyed. For many fans however, the last album "Far from the Sun" was a dissapointment, and represented the last gasp of creativity from a band trying to play in the style they had created for themselves. Vocalist Pasi Koskinen in particular sounded like he just wasn't enjoying it anymore, and (unsurprisingly) subsequently left.New album "Eclipse" sees the band, having recruited new vocalist Tomi Joutsen, returning to the folklore tome that provided the inspiration for "Tales". Luckily, Joutsen is a more than worthy replacement for Koskinen, and in my opinion has more range and emotion in his voice. His arrival seems to have reinvigorated the band, and as a result the new album is not just a return to form, but in my opinion the best record the band has ever made. It's a perfect fusion of the "Tuonela" songwriting and sound, comined with the more folky elements of "Elegy" and "Lakes", but it seems to be the culmination of everything Amorphis have been aiming for all these years. It seems like the band has come fullcircle and has taken the best elements from their recent albums and combined them with the best of the earlier material to form something truly majestic. "Elegy" was one of my favourite albums at the time, as was "Am Universum", and "Eclipse" feels like the offspring of those 2 albums, but is also so much more. Taking Kullervo's story from the Kalevala as it's lyrical foundation, "Eclipse" weaves a varied tale off loss and tragedy, but always feels uplifing and beautiful. The wonderful keyboard work of Santeri Kallio offsets the heartfelt melodies of guitarist Esa Holopainen, and the resulting melodies are at once gorgeously textural and insanely catchy. Single "House of Sleep" will be stuck in your head for weeks, and "Perkele (God of Fire)" is heavy as hell, but massively original, bringing back memories of "Greed" from Tuonela. "Brother Moon" is very folky, sounding like the metal offspring of early Levellers, and the guitar breakdown in "Under a Soil and Black Stone" reminds me of the intro from "The Way" before breaking out of it's groove into a fast break remincent of "Drifting Memories" from Am Universum.This is the album I always hoped Amorphis would make. If you're into early Amorphis but liked the later more experimental stuff you'll love this. I wasn't expecting much, but this has totally blown me away, and is a contender for album of the year for me.Top quality. Well done Amorphis!

Tracks

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Info:

Category:

Music > Albums

Case Type:

CD

Release Type:

Retail

Comments:

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Cover Info:

Title:

Amorphis - Eclipse (2006) Retail CD

Part:

Front

Dimensions:

953 x 953 px

Size:

206 KB

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Report a Problem Wrong Cover Duplicate Image Bad Quality Wrong Info

07/02/11 by josejesusdark

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