Tuesday, May 15, 2007

GREAT WORKS: AMORPHIS - TUONELA


Amorphis comes from Helsinki of Finland and formed in 1990. They have released 7 full albums and 3 EPs, and they are ready to release their 8th album on August. In the beginning they performed death metal, with many traditional and melodic riffs on their songs, with keyboards to follow the guitars. Slowly, they inserted psychedelic influences from the ‘70s and bands such as Pink Floyd and Hawkwind.

Their 4th full length album is 1999’s “Tuonela” and it is their best album up to date. On this album, Amorphis have diminished to the minimum the death metal elements, and the ‘70s influences are evident more than any other album. Despite this fact, that leaded the band to pass from a kind of audience to another, due to the change to music, Amorphis create an incredible album. In musical level the band combines guitar parts, which have a traditional Finnish touch, with space/psychedelic keyboard parts. The whole music matches perfectly with the very special voice of the band’s singer, Pasi Koskinen and the final result takes off the ground. All the songs have coherence and a travel mood which makes the listening of the album very pleasant, almost to every listener, independently his music background. The lyrics of the album are about personal moments of the writter and all the talking is done by traditional Finnish tales.

Not to forget to mention that, “Tuonela” is the name of underworld in “Kalevala”, and the name of the plant on album’s cover, is Pihlaja and grows only in Finland.



AMORPHIS discography:

(1992) Karelian Isthmus
(1994) Tales From The Thousand Lakes
(1996) Elegy
(1999) Tuonela
(2001) Am Universum
(2003) Far From The Sun
(2006) Eclipse
(2007) Silent Waters

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