Amorphis

Silent Waters (Nuclear Blast)
By Martin Popoff

There’s something dense and uncommunicative about Silent Waters, Amorphis rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty, including touchstones from all their post-raw records, namely the last five or six, and even many death growls from the early days. I’m still having a hard time getting over the fact that this band has a new vocalist, Tomi Joutsen having replaced Pasi Koskinen for the last record, Eclipse (actually more like just after Far From The Sun, seemingly aeons ago). But listen to “Toward And Against” and one has to admit he’s covering the light and shade bases. But yes, like Paradise Lost as of late, Amorphis seems bent on encompassing their catalogue and compressing it into carbonic diamonds of progressive, note-dense, mostly quite heavy, sound-filled tracks, resulting in listener fatigue as one tries to draw all these chill Finn vapors in. Cohesion is sacrificed for substance, meat on the bones, a seven course meal that’s gonna take many listens to digest. And actually, if you get yer slide rule out, in keeping with this idea of everything offered, there are all sorts of acoustic and quasi-ballad moves as well, Amorphis seemingly bending time, making us believe the album is bloody three hours long. Katatonia and Anathema albums have been tiring in this way, and never Pasi-era Amorphis albums. And then again, you almost gotta call this the most accomplished and professional Amorphis spread of them all. Weird.
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