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Rating: 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.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Better Unborn (05:52)
Better it would be for me
And better it would have been
Had I not been born, not grown
Not been brought into the world
Not had to come to this earth
Not been suckled for the world
If I'd died a three-night--old
Been lost in my swaddling band
I'd have needed but a span of cloth
A span more of wood,
But a cubit of good earth
Two words from the priest
Three verses from the cantor
One clang from the bell
02 Against Widows (04:06)
The Devil weds a widow
Death another's leftovers
Better to lie on a willows
Rest on alder boughs
Than upon a widow's bed
On a used woman's pillow
Sweeter the side of a fence
Than a widow's flank
Softer the side of a groove
Than a widow's beside is
The Devil weds a widow
The grave one twice wed
A widow's hand is rougher
Than a dry spruce bough
With which she strikes the playful
Grabs the one who laughs
A widow has had her games
And spent a merry evening
03 The Orphan (05:18)
The calloo's spirits are low
Swimming on the chill water
But the orphan's are lower
Walking down the village street.
The sparrow's belly is chill
Sitting on the icy bough
But my belly is more chill
As I step from glade to glade.
Chorus:
The dove's heart is cold
As it pecks the village rick
But I'm colder still
As I drink the icy water.
[chorus]
04 On Rich and Poor (05:19)
Old folk remember
And those today learn
How before their time
Life was different here:
Without the sun people lived
Groped about without the moon
With candles sowing was done
Planting performed with torches.
At the time we lived
Without the sunshine
Who had covered up our sun
And who had hidden our moon?
Without the moonlight stumbled
With our fists fumbled the land
With ourhands we sought out roads
With hands roads, with fingers swamps
We could not live without sun
Nor manage without moonlight;
Who would seek out the sun
Who spy out the moon?
Who else if not God
The one son of God?
05 My Kantele (05:02)
Truly they lie, they talk utter nonsense
Who say that music reckon that the kantele
Was fashioned by a god
Out of a great pike's shoulders
From a water-dog's hooked bones:
It was made from the grief
Moulded from sorrow
Its belly out of hard days
Its soundboard from endless woes
Its strings gathered from torments
And its pegs from other ills
So it not play, will not rejoice at all
Music will not play to please
Give off the right sort of joy
For it was fashioned from cares
Moulded from sorrow.
06 Cares (04:30)
Many rocks the rapid has
A lot of billows the sea
More plentiful are my cares
Than cones on a spruce
Beard moss on a juniper
Gnarls upon a pine bark
Knobs upon a fir husks on a grass-top
Boughs on a bad tree.
Drag my cares away
Carry off my griefs
For no horse can draw
No iron-shod jerk
Without the shaft-bow shaking off
The cares of this skinny one
The sorrows of this black bird
07 Song of the Troubled One (04:08)
What the thrush toils at
The partridge asks for
The hapless one takes
The troubled one steals
Puts upon a spade
Sets on a runner
Hides under a door
Shields with a bath-whisk
The farmer hammers
And tempers his spears
Marries off his sons
Hands out his daughters
In boots clogged with clay
In fancy mittens
The sea-swell rumbles
And the wind it blows
And the king hears it
From five miles away
From six directions
From seven backwoods
From eight heaths away.
08 Weeper on the Shore (04:52)
In the vale where I once listened out for the light
Where the little birds warble
The ptarmigans babble
And my heart looked about for some rest from its trouble
I cast my eyes downward upon the seaside
And a fair young girl on the shore I espied
Who was sitting and weeping
To see the waves leaping
And over the skyline sad vigil was keeping.
O why are you weeping alone on the shore?
Now still from your eyes I can see the tears pour.
What sorrow and smart
So pierces your heart
That even at midnight it will not depart?
09 Elegy (07:22)
Long evenings full on longing
Low-spirited my mornings
Full of longing too my nights
And all times the bitterest.
'Tis my lovely I long for
It is my darling I miss
My black-browed one I grieve for.
Beneath the grass my treasure
Under the sand my sweet one
Beneath the grass my treasure
Under the sand my sweet one
There's no hearing my treasure
No seeing my marten-breat
No hearing her in the lane
Driving below the window
Chopping the wood by the stack
Clinking outside the cook-house
In the eart my berry lies
Beneath the grass my treasure
Under the sand my sweet one
Beneath the grass my treasure
Under the sand my sweet one
Long evenings full on longing
Low-spirited my mornings
Full of longing too my nights
And all times the bitterest.
There's no hearing my treasure
No seeing my marten-breat
No hearing her in the lane
Driving below the window
Chopping the wood by the stack
Clinking outside the cook-house
In the eart my berry lies
In the soil she's mouldering
Under the sand my sweet one
Beneath the grass my treasure
The one I grieve for.
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Other reviews
By Grampasso
Amorphis achieved formal perfection with Elegy.
The contrast between the clean vocals and growls enriches everything, avoiding banality or déjà vu.
By Starblazer
Blessed was the day I discovered this great Finnish band, capable of blending death metal, evocative atmospheres, and melody into a devastating mix.
On Rich And Poor: this alone justifies buying the album. Not even Manowar crafted a riff as epic and exhilarating.
