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Amorphis set new standards for themselves on their impressive Queen of Time album.
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The lingering, cold winter of Scandinavia has been an artistic muse for native musicians who spend long hours of the day indoors practicing their instruments and creating mythic sonic worlds whilse writing epic poems about nature and the fate of humanity. Finnish progressive metal outfit Amorphis are coming close to three decades of creating enchanting music and are about to release their thirteenth album Queen of Time comprising twelve twisted tales about the rise and fall of civilisation.
“Finnish artist Pekka Kainulainen wrote the lyrics, we gave him a free hand to do his own story in the spirit of how we usually do our lyrics” says guitarist Tomi Koivusaari. “The lyrics are very universal, timeless subjects and we thought Queen of Time was the right title that fitted best with all these stories and the music”.
The band loves to indulge in grandiose concepts like that of their 2009 album Skyforger; however on this new release the band wanted the songs to simply relate to each other rather than tell one epic tale.
For the second consecutive time the band employed producer Jens Bogren who has an impressive resume working with some of the finest progressive rock and metal acts such as Katatonia, Opeth, and Sepultura. “He’s like a seventh member of the band. Without Jens we would just argue about what we should do and how we should do things and we always end up compromising which doesn’t satisfy anyone. So with Jens we can play and have a distance from him and because he’s a perfectionist he takes away all our stresses and we can just concentrate in playing and creating music, he brings out the best in players”.
It’s clear his contribution to the band’s overall sound is paramount with Amorphis’s vision of creating metal that truly is progressive. The band’s sound has manifested in the most comprehensive way on Queen of Time and for the first time in the band’s careers Bogren has included a choir into these new songs. The album also features an orchestra, an accordion, flutes, sitar and even jazzy saxophones on the song Daughter Of Hate.
Without a shadow of a doubt Amorphis are proud of their progressive rock influences and have increasingly been pushing more and more into that direction. “From the beginning when we started we were listening to death metal of course but also listening to Pink Floyd and classic rock and even some ABBA,” he laughs. “All kinds of music. We wanted to have those influences in our music directly and indirectly. The music we like affects the way we make the songs and play them. I like the 70s progressive rock bands for their wide soundscapes and their skill set so that’s what we want to do with Amorphis as well”, Koivusaari says.
“The lyrics are very universal, timeless subjects and we thought Queen of Time was the right title that fitted best with all these stories and the music.”
[TOMI]
The first song to be released onto the world from Queen Of Time happens to also be the opening song The Bee, a powerful composition with spell binding keyboards, heavy distorted guitars and singer Tomi Joutsen belting out his harsh growling vocals. It leaves a strong emotional resonance with the listener and it’s what Amorphis fans have come to expect. “Most of the elements we have on this album are on this song as well, it represents the album quite well but of course we try to make every song different, The Bee has our old elements that you’ll recognise as Amorphis but it’s also something new and that’s the situation with the whole album, I think.”
Over the band’s long career, members have come and gone. In the case of Amorphis, some of the original members have settled back in; bassist Olli-Pekka Laine, an important cog in the Amorphis machine for the first decade of the bands existence (between 1990-2000). His return also meant the band parting ways with Niclas Etelävuori who originally replaced Lane back in the year 2000 and was in the band for a long seventeen years: “We didn’t want to poach any of our friends who were playing in other bands; at first we didn’t have any idea who the replacement should be and we didn’t want to have any session musicians in Amorphis. So Olli-Pekka was the only bassist we really considered, we’d kept in touch throughout the years and we asked him if he was willing to do a few shows and tour with us and then we of course asked him if he wanted to be on the next album and that’s when he officially re-joined the band, it felt like he’d left just yesterday rather than after such a long break”.
Amorphis are now more stable than ever with front man Tomi Joutsen also coming close to being in the line up for fifteen years. With each new album and tour, their aim is to offer fans incredible musicianship and ambitious live shows. “We want it to be as professional as possible, we don’t sample any instruments live but we have to use some backing tracks for some of the choirs and the extra instruments; it will be more authentic to the way the album sounds if we have those elements there.”
Amorphis will be embarking on a world tour this year and would like to visit Australia for only the second time in their career (the first time was back in 2013 for their Circle world tour). Maybe we’ll see them at one of our prestigious music festivals or perhaps they will do a thorough headline tour around the country. The one thing that is certain is these Finns will be delighted to come out of the cold to a warmer climate that loves Scandinavian progressive metal.
