Amorphis
Black Winter Day

Amorphis are one of the most fascinating and mutable musical entities of recent years, a band that, overcoming periods of crisis and continuous lineup changes, embarked on a creative journey that took them from the pure death metal of their debut "The Karelian Isthmus" to the melodic death metal with folk influences of the masterpieces "Tales From The Thousand Lakes" and "Elegy", then moving on to a charming and varied progressive rock with "Tuonela", followed by the not as successful "Am Universum" and the uncertain "Far From The Sun", to finally return to the melodic death metal that had consecrated them with the decent "Eclipse" and especially with the wonderful "Silent Waters" from 2007.

This EP, dated 1995, follows closely the release of "Tales From The Thousand Lakes" from which it takes the song that gives it its title ("Black Winter Day") along with 3 unreleased tracks. It is a real gem for collectors, embellished by a truly superb cover, depicting a bird of prey flying in the night. That kind of anchor tied to the bird's claws is an Ukonvasara, the weapon of Ukko, the thunder god in Finnish mythology.

"Black Winter Day" is one of the masterpieces of the Finnish combo: a melancholic and dreamy keyboard intro followed by an equally charming guitar riff. Despite Tomi Koivusaari's deep and visceral growl, the song is not heavy at all; in fact, it possesses an uncommon charm, accentuated by the lyrics, which, like many others by Amorphis, recall Finnish mythology. The first unreleased track is "Folk Of The North", which is nothing more than a one-minute piano instrumental that further accentuates the Nordic melancholy of this EP. "Moon And Sun" has a very dark and doom-like rhythm, as demonstrated by the guitar riff that seems to have come out of "Master Of Reality". Koivusaari's growl here is darker than ever, the lyrics are in English but, from what you can understand without reading the lyrics, it could easily be some ancient Nordic language. A truly superb song, an ideal soundtrack for a pagan rite under the midnight sun.

The disc closes with "Moon And Sun Part II: North's Son" introduced by a pompous orchestral intro, a tad out of place in the dark atmosphere of the rest of the EP. The song is sustained by solid riffs that anticipate the sounds of "Elegy", then fading away on the melancholic notes of Kasper Martenson's piano, which closes the 13 minutes of the disc in the same way they began: in the melancholy of the eternal sunset of the Land of a Thousand Lakes. If you find it, buy it without hesitation, you won’t regret it.