Amorphis
Silent Waters

Since changing their vocalist for last years ‘Eclipse’, Amorphis has revealed music that they haven’t been able to reach during their entire career. The almost flawless ‘Eclipse’ put some high expectations on ‘Silent Waters’, a pressure they have no problems matching. This is without any reasonable doubt a well worthy successor to ‘Eclipse’.

As ‘Eclipse’ did, ‘Silent Waters’ begins with one of the heaviest songs on the album, as well as one of the most difficult to bond with and attach to. But it's a pleasant song, mixing really brutal vocal parts with genuinely elegant clear vocals and in the middle of the song; a truly harmonious part which makes the song very special. After this the album becomes more atmospheric and intercede with a mood that is so enjoyable that when you realize you’re on the third rotation of the record you can’t help but wonder – where the hell did those two hours pass?

Starting up in the beginning of the nineties, Amorphis played pure death metal with only growls and way too little melodies to justify the band. Back then they missed all that peaceful, calmness stuff that makes the band so great today and when they changed their vocalist and more or less abandomed the growling for clear vocals only they lost too much of the power and substance that makes the band so special today. Both ‘Eclipse’ and ‘Silent Waters’ have captured a combination of these elements in such a way that there is almost nothing to object to. Of course, you can’t give Tomi Joutsen, the new vocalist, all the credit for this even though it’s thanks to him that Amorphis now have a vocalist that gives them the possibility to justify their music. Doubtless better. And a huge improvement compared to the considerably more limited, yet not at all substandard, Pasi Koskinen.

This is some pretty well guitar oriented music, but thanks to the so typical Amorphis coils and curls with the keyboard this really gets the depth that makes Amorphis so interesting. And in the calmer parts of the album, the band doesn’t hesitate to enrich the music with piano and at some places even sitar. This gives a further depth and brings the band to even higher levels, almost to a new dimension - superior to most bands. With all due respect to all of this, what really makes this music to entirely blossom beyond all of their competitors is how they mixture their heaviness with harmonies and melodies. Virtually every music band have something to learn from this.

Even though they probably will find this most appealing, this is definitely not just something for hard rockers, death metalers and people that like heaviness. Amorphis music is stretching to so many levels and is so well played that it calls to so many ways of interest and flavors that you can’t count all the feelings affected by it. Personally I love how they take their music from roaring out an “aaaaarghhh” to tinkle on some slow paino tunes and almost whispering the lyrics in a matter of a seconds. It goes straight to the heart.

I can recommend Amorphis to almost everyone. This simply have everything an album needs. The heart breaking guitar sounds which only Children of Bodom can match, the calmer parts performed with piano that makes your tears flow and a vocalist that can handle just everything he’s suppose to do (which, God bless, doesn’t include any falsetto singing since that would just be extremely wrong in a picture like this). This album is a masterpiece without much of a competition and I can’t do anything but celebrate it!

Even though there aren’t any “attach-right-to-it-songs” and all songs are on an even level, three songs distinguish themselves from the other already golden tracks. These are Her Alone, Enigma and Shaman - which funny enough also comes in order on the album. But mark my words: They doesn’t in any way make make you want to skip the rest of the songs, because the songs around them are so evenly great that you can't even think about going on without them.

Amorphis continues their path of victory and shouldn’t this album generate in continuous progression for their sales, it would be too far off suing the entire worlds' music industry for idiocy! Kiitos Amorphis, hyvä työ!