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Rating: I learned to love Amorphis. I discovered them with their latest "Silent Waters," an album with gray, muted colors that evoke the lake on which the pink swan of the cover swims; I listened to them in the guise that made them appreciated by the wider audience, in that "Elegy" which will surely remain among the pearls of today's metal; I found the dark and melancholic sounds of the last release in "Tuonela," an album that, for me, is at the same level (if not slightly superior) to "Elegy," autumnal and meditative. Now this "Am Universum", a follow-up not only chronological to "Tuonela" but in some ways stylistic as well. Continuing with the metaphor of colors, it's dark blue that I think of when I listen to it. A color, however, that is not solid but rather saturated with nuances leaning towards pink, a color that can at least be associated with the name of a historic band.
Indeed, right from the opening with "Alone", the main influence that the group has throughout the album robustly emerges, the Pink Floyd. The Cambridge band is perceivable in many melodic lines and generally in the atmospheres, sometimes devoted to psychedelia, other times more leaning towards a progressive rock alternating electric outbursts with more intimate sections. The liquid guitars soak the listener and surround them, lashing them over and over with electric blasts and massive electric walls. Pasi, on vocals, completely abandons growl in favor of a very expressive and versatile clean voice that swings between a sharp and disdainful singing to one more recited and calm (used to a lesser extent).
It must be said right away that the album is far from being the masterpiece that "Tuonela" was (just to mention its most direct predecessor), but it still has excellent cards to play.
Besides the already mentioned "Alone", opened by an ethereal intro and developed on generally aggressive and martial lines, "Goddess (Of The Sad Man)" also deserves a mention, remarkable for the vocal interpretation and the enveloping guitar lines (combined with a very precise rhythm section rich with tempo changes), and especially "Shatters Within", a superb track where the whole group plays as if in a state of grace. The track highlights (perhaps for the first but not only time on the album) the saddest and most melancholic part of Amorphis. Very expressive lyrics, a stirring and pathos-filled rhythm (the chorus is beautiful, enriched by keyboard sections of undeniable atmosphere), generally fluid guitars, and an overall subdued and suffering aura (though never resigned) give the piece the gold palm as the best piece of the work.
Following this, I would mention "Crimson Wave", not so much for its actual quality (a good track, slightly inferior to the others) but for the beautiful sax break that will definitely bring to mind for many, once again, the Floyd of the mid-seventies, "Drifting Memories", a piece very close to what was done in "Tuonela", steeped in its same emotional melancholy, and "Veil Of Sin". The latter deserves a few more words. Here, Pasi is accompanied by a beautiful piano that more or less follows him throughout the track, supplanted by an organ in a fabulous chorus, intense, forceful, and poetic, with an expressive strength similar to that heard in "Shatters Within", at times perhaps even more complete, thanks to, once again, the beautiful sax intervention midway through the chorus. Here, one perceives a sense of suffering tied to a nostalgia for something unspecified, almost making one want to curl up within oneself, as if a cold wind were freezing our limbs, yet unable to touch our heart, still beating and loaded with heroic disdain and stubbornness.
The finale, linked to the good "Grieve Stricken Heart", bringing back all the elements heard so far on the album, only confirms the genuine quality of this product.
As a mutable band, with no precise form, Amorphis loves to experiment and pursue their musical idols, reworking them to enrich a sound that becomes increasingly complex and intense with each album. The album, a less melancholic and more seventies-inspired "Tuonela", is certainly an excellent title, truly deserving a place in the group's discography, that, genuinely, knows how to surprise listeners with each release. Slightly inferior to their masterpieces, but no less worthy of attention, indeed deserving of prolonged and deep listens to grasp its true depth.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Alone (06:19)
Tear dimmed rememberance
In a womb of time
Breath upon me
Possessed by the passion
Fate will set you free
Infertile
Chased be the precious
When flesh is an enemy
Fair weather man
Step aside from the way of a better man than you
So you fall at his feet he's the one who betrays you
It's the servants devotion for the decay
Stand up
There are no flowers on your grave
There are no chains
There I keep chanting for the forgotten name
Why you feel so empty
And still have everything
It's fullfilment
I've got more companions
When I'm all alone
Flesh is fetching
02 Goddess (of the Sad Man) (04:01)
Astonishment when I bend over you creep
Put a noose around my neck
Which side I decide it's my time to reap
It's your side wicked and deaf
Take me to the place I can sleep
Wipe away all misery
Turn my path away
From the mind searing tragedy
Consuming range of vision
I can see they decline
It's a stay of execution
I fly free tonight
(chorus:)
New moon laughs on it's own
Without compassion
I crawl through the realms unknown
And kneel to the goddess of the sad man
Inhale all mists from the shadows
And hide before the dawn
Face your mortal horror
You won't be reborn
Is he a proud man or just a fraud
Fooling himself with a losers talk
Punished to eternal vanity
It's thy destiny to cry for purity
You infidel slime
I grace insanity
satisfy my agony
I know what my goddess needs
I bet there's something wrong
inside my psycho creep
fire burns within her eyes
take me to the deadly ride
I remember how she was
when she choked on her own pride
(chorus)
03 The Night Is Over (04:06)
We craved the light from the darkness
It's a morning of misfortune
The dawn of a mankind
Listen to me instead of a blind folk's speak
Forget the mature plan
We are but humans you'll see
(chorus:)
I can hear the silence
See invisible emptiness
Tarnish the halo of your guidance
And the night is over
That women in grief
Luxurious gehenna
And what I have become
What I have done to you
Listen to me instead of a blind folk's speak
Forget the mature plan
We are but humans you'll see
(chorus)
04 Shatters Within (05:21)
Once I was there Standing outside Looking in Beside my window Smiling face, shattering It's an old man's pride That climbs over understanding It wasn't your child That I was hurting (pre-chorus:) And I turn my back to the world Well I don't care What can I say if I see you all as dead (chorus:) Under the dying sun it comes Weaving fear but I have none I know that mushroom cloud Won't come very near What do you have to believe in And all the poison you breath in The crystal heart shatters within once I was there standing outside moving in inside my window crying face, shattering take all that you have and leave the rest for today it's the old folk's sign that took away your chastidy (pre-chorus) (chorus)
05 Crimson Wave (04:47)
She's riding on a crimson wave
Truth sat on her shoulder
Planets before melting face
The keys for the wounded
Sinking into underground
Please the one who wants it
Something is pulling you down
It's not the cravings why you need it
(pre-chorus)
It's a rush hour inside my head
Don't wanna share the anguish
And I will take it away from you
Before you can change it
(chorus)
That bastard hallucination's pushing me
Like a damned I walk over
Touch the sky when it's burning red
Standing the ground I have chosen
Shivering in outer space
There's no one who can hear you
Getting into different state
It's like getting nowhere
Gathering all those fears and fails
There's no one who can see you
Someone is pulling you down
It's not the cravings why you need it
(pre-chorus)
(chorus)
06 Drifting Memories (04:26)
How does it feel Blessed to receive Be modest and forgiving How does it feel You can try to hate me But you're only hurting yourself (chorus:) Drifting in your shady memories Where to go when sorrow breeds Let the fear run through Breath in black and stiffling air All those words they disappear No need to rest it's too early to die You don't have to say Why rue for that day When you've open up your eyes again Now it's your fate Face your heart ache You wish to make it unreal (chorus)
07 Forever More (04:35)
I walk down to the seashore
To bury my hate
I wait till the morning of the morning
But it's too late
Down to the seashore
Through the illuminous gate
You wait for tomorrow but today is today
No one can understand my pain
(chorus)
Find me the ocean
Where waters stand still
Nothing can befall evermore
Find me the ocean which swallows all that floats
It's time to prevail your conspiracy
It's the whisper of a dead man
I've heard it before
It's yearning my emotions
Before I was born
It was only delusion
Of illuminous gate
Left only confusion
'Cause today is the day
(chorus)
Calm is the breath that breaks the circle of silence
Like the whisper of a dying man
Who was born in his own funeral
Time is right for the twisted one
Guide me to the center of the vicious goal
You're my prey, kiss my arrow the silver
08 Veil of Sin (05:12)
For the cold pale women
I leave some of my goodness
I leave the veil of sin
And let go my dreams
[pre-chorus:]
Eternity follows me everywhere
Your words so hollow won't go anywhere
Distant shadows disappears
It searches the gate beyond the stars
And there I can see her again
[chorus:]
Tell me why you have to be so pure and wrong
And I'm alive to be here
Is it just an omen
Is it me walking blindly
I will find the answer
When I wake up from my dream
[pre-chorus]
And there I can kill her again
[chorus]
09 Captured State (04:29)
So many years I've been fading
And closed the doors behind
Pay that price if you lost it all
The end is not the past recall
Bridge:
Waiting for the enclosening darkness
And there you will be the light
As it's carved in your soul
Step out from your mould
Chorus:
The captured mind is a captured state
But only free will has it's sustain
You burn away all you once loved
Now it's time to turn away
It's all too clear you've been hiding
Nothing to tell but lies
Feel shame when you distain it all
Your stand is not the past recall
[bridge]
[chorus x2]
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