Amorphis - Tales From The Thousand Lakes

184 days till W:O:A 2023.

Finally another album that took my heart by storm. Amorphis' second studio album Tales From The Thousand Lakes from 1994 made it so easily to the stack of my favourite albums. This album is perfect as it is and I love every single track on it.

Amorphis formed in 1990 and they have released 14 studio albums so far. Many albums for me to choose from. I chose Tales From The Thousand Lakes because it is said to be the first step into the direction of the Amorphis signature sound and also to be very influential on the genre of melodic death metal. Amorphis' releases have been associated with various genres from (melodic) death metal and death-doom metal to progressive, power and folk metal. I am very curious to listen to more music from this band. Tales From The Thousand Lakes falls into the category of melodic death metal, although there are audible influences from progressive metal and doom metal and folk metal.

Speaking of Ville Tuomi. He was only involved on this studio album as a guest vocalist. He provided the "clean" vocals on several tracks. I am putting clean in quotes, because he has a rather nasal voice and they are only clean because they are contrasted with Tomi Koivusaari's super deep growling here. Which I love by the way. Koivusaari's growls are soft and intense without ever being aggressive or threatening. He provided all the harsh vocals on this album and played rhythm guitar as well. Lead guitar was played by Esa Holopainen, Ollie-Pekka Laine played bass and Jan Rechberger played the drums. Kasper Mårtenson joined the band as keyboardist for this album as the first official keyboardist in the line-up. Rechberger, Laine, Holopainen and Koivusaari are still members of the current line-up today although Koivusaari is only providing backing vocals nowadays as Tomi Joutsen has taken over as offical vocalist in 2005.

The original release of Tales From The Thousand Lakes featured ten tracks and ran for roughly 40 minutes. Lyrically the album uses the Finnish national epic Kalevala. I think I still have a copy up in the attic from my university studies, I will have to go an see if I can still find it... In some tracks, the lyrics are really short, which doesn't bother me at all, because like I said: this album is about atmosphere and the music around the lyrics is what makes this work.

I really enjoy all tracks on this album and it works best when listened to as a whole. There is something special to be found and explored in each song. My favourite tracks though are Black Winter Day, In the Beginning and Magic & Mayhem, because I am a sucker for the hammond organ and the way the keyboards are used in those songs is just fantastic. 

Black Winter Day starts off with a catchy keyboard intro followed by a soaring guitar melody that is ever present in this song, even though sometimes only in the background. The keyboard has long solo parts and is really central in this track. It is a very melodic and catchy song, but never cheesy in any way.

In The Beginning features more subtle use of synthy elements until the hammond organ breakdown comes. I can see how you might hate that track if you are anti-keyboards. For those who don't it adds a really nice twist to the song, bringing in some 70s psychodelic rock feel.

Magic & Mayhem starts off slow and doomy and the hammond organ is present right from the start. After roughly one minute the song changes and becomes more trudging and dark. Until it hits the 2:30 minute mark and the crazy psycholdelic pop synth elements hit. From here the song is just crazy and I love it so much.

I can only recommend you listen to this album. It inegrates so many different elements from different musical styles and yet it creates a coherent whole that let's you disappear in a world full of melancholy and magic.