A Bridge Into the Future, A Mirror to the Past – 95%*
Amorphis’ third album released in 1996. As these fabulous Finns continued to let their sound blossom, they broadened their horizons. Elegy is an album I view as semi-similar to Tiamat’s 1994 adventurous “Wildhoney.” Part of me connecting these two albums is that I got both of these albums on CD around the same time. Both represented significant leaps forward in each band’s sound, while marking clear cutoffs in each band’s discography.
“Elegy” sees the clean vocals experimented with on “Tales From the Thousand Lakes” become the predominant vocal approach. The growls aren’t completely gone here (and they stuck around on the next album for a single song), and the interplay between the growls and cleans leads to some neat new songwriting avenues. As well, the guitars fill the gritty, more heavily distorted sound of this album, while the keyboards add a bit of a clean sound that leads to some fun interplay between the two.
For people coming from the previous album, Elegy is definitely a change in sound, but it is still recognizably the Amorphis from “Tales.” Other than the clean vocals, the move away from death metal song structures is more apparent. Heaviness isn’t the point of these songs (although there are still some very heavy moments). The expansion of clean vocals here doesn’t feel like a cashgrab or attempt to sell more records, but more as a natural progression. The followup album “Tuonela” seemed to be too comfortable in one setting for the majority of the album. In some ways, I think that the confusion and blurred lines of “Elegy” led to its brilliance. I don’t know if that was intentional or a Bob Ross-level happy accident, but I wish this album had gotten a proper sequel. I don’t hate mid or modern era Amorphis, I feel indifferent about it.
I’m always a full album listener. Some albums are significantly elevated when listening to them from start to finish, and you can tell the band put in a lot of effort to make an album flow from front to back. Other albums feel like a loose bag of songs (for better or worse). There can be great albums in either of these categories, but the first option is far and away my preference. “Elegy” accomplishes this wonderfully, just like its predecessor.
This album is apparently based on a book of the “Kanteletar,” which is a collection of old Finnish poems and stories. Lyrics in music are rarely the focus of my listening, and I generally see the voice as more of an instrument than a message-carrying device. This album still manages to feel like it tells a story through its music, and in the snippets of lyrics that I do catch, the lyrics seem to be part of the connective tissue holding this album together. I love the cohesion on display here. The ending of the album being “My Kantele” in an acoustic rendition is a very nice capstone on this already great album. In a way, it acts as this album’s “Planet Caravan” or “Solitude,” where it gives the listener a chance to breathe and reflect on the album after the last 50 or so minutes of music passed by. This album has great pacing, and naturally ebbs and flows. “The Orphan” has an incredible, Rainbow-esque introduction that I can’t praise enough, and this album stretches and recedes like waves against a beach.
It’s difficult to point out individual highlights on “Elegy,” as again, this is an album that flows in full. Listening to a single song is like reading a single chapter of a novel. It may be great writing, but context makes the world go ’round. With that, there are some noteworthy songs that are particular standouts. “My Kantele,” “On Rich and Poor,” and the title track may be some of my favourite Amorphis songs. “Cares” gets surprisingly electronic halfway through, which is a fun curveball.
“Elegy” has this mildly psychedelic feel to it that is hard to define. Like an aura at the periphery of your vision, it doesn’t stand out as immediately psychedelic, but the more you focus on it, the more the aura shimmers and swirls. I think this can be attributed to the lush production found on “Elegy,” which is sonically impactful, but also willing to let all the instruments breathe and wash over the listener in a cascade (listen to the first minute of “My Kantele” and you’ll understand). I struggle to define what I’m getting at here, but the production job done here is a highlight, and I wish more metal albums sounded like it (looking at you “Surgical Steel,” “Kingdom of Conspiracy,” and “Labyrinth.”)
I often say this is the death metal album for people who aren’t into death metal. A die-hard King Crimson or Rush fan would be able to find something to enjoy here, as would fans of Scandinavian folk, even if they need to squint a little. I’ve written a lot on albums that were key for me to get into death metal, and will likely continue to do so, but that’s the perspective of someone already into thrash metal and other types of metal at the time. For the person coming from a different musical background than I did (prog rock for example), this album is gorgeous, relatively non-abrasive, but still has all the key elements of a great death metal album, just in a more palatable form. Also, prog-rock fans seem to get funnelled towards Opeth, and as much as I like some Opeth, there seems to be a chilling effect on people’s taste in metal if Opeth is their starting point. Amorphis’ “Elegy” is a brilliantly poetic album, and the name reflects how I view it. It is a reflection of the band’s past, their present, and has glimpses of the band’s future stretching out before them. While I didn’t follow their future footsteps as closely as I did up to and including Elegy, I’m happy that we got this album in the process. Give it a listen on cold, Black Winter Day, and you’ll get why I gave it such a high rating.
**Note: Originally posted on the Metal Archives by CelestialEmissary
