Amorphis
Elegy

In 1996, the sound of Amorphis saw a turning point with the arrival of Pasi Koskinen, marking the introduction of the first clean vocals, which permeate their work: "Elegy". Inspired by the Kanteletar, a kind of Finnish epic written in 1840 by Elias Lönnrot.

But let's get to the music. The album begins with a synth and sitar intro that serves as a prologue to "Better Unborn" where the musical atmosphere is quite dreamlike, with Kim Rantala's keyboards in the foreground resembling the feeling in TFTTL. However, there's something new: Koskinen's clean vocals occupy most of the song, leaving Tomi Koivusaari's excellent growl with just a few lines. Then comes one of my favorites from the album, "Against Widows", a song that talks about the devil marrying a widow, and here too, Koivusaari's growls have only a small part: the initial verse, followed by clean vocals and even an unsuccessful scream in the middle section by Koskinen.

"The Orphan" is a slow, calm song sung entirely in clean vocals by Koskinen. In its 5.17 minutes, it features only 2 minutes of singing and a good 3.17 of instrumental, with simple musical accompaniment, usually underlined by Rantala's dominant keyboards. Then finally, with On The Rich And Poor, there's a nice hit of speed (don't imagine something like Slayer, just more than previously...), utilizing Koivusaari's growls more than before, and then Koskinen's somewhat plaintive clean vocals in the choruses. But now there's a song that makes your ears perk up, absolutely beautiful, very doom, that is "My Kantele", personally my favorite on the whole album, which features incredibly cavernous growls dominating the first verses and a great keyboard solo by Rantala, both in the interlude preceding Koskinen and in the instrumental part before the growl returns.

Then there's "Cares", a nice song but nothing more, which slides away… to make room for Song Of the Troubled One, a fine song entirely in growl, fast as it should be, complete with an Esa Holopainen solo and once again giving the keyboards a prominent role. Then there's the acoustic intro of "Weeper On The Shore", one of my favorites on the album, featuring a beautiful alternation between clean vocals with acoustic guitars and growl with electric guitar; it's hardly necessary to add there's the classic 110-cum-laude work of the keyboardist. The intro piano forte of the title track is really beautiful, but the rest of the song is frankly bland. "Relief" is a nice song, fast, but it's instrumental and I don't enjoy instrumentals, hence I move on to the final track, "My Kantele (Acoustic Reprise)": beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, I never tire of listening to it thanks to the lovely dreamlike atmosphere created by the organ and accordion of Kim (Rantala). It's one of those songs that, when it starts, I hit repeat, a song worth buying the album for; perhaps I'm exaggerating, but that's how it is for me, and it's an excellent way to bid farewell to the listener.

I give it a nice 3 because Koskinen's singing isn't the best and the fact that many songs have long instrumental sections of 2 or 3 minutes in songs of 4-5 minutes does not appeal to me very much.