Under the Red Cloud

Author: Primož Novak

Artist: Amorphis
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: year_month
Length: 49:56
Rating: 4/5

Finnish outfit Amorphis have shown remarkable stability over the past decade, with albums coming out regularly and the quality staying high. Around the turn of the millennium Amorphis weren’t exactly in top form, but a change of vocalist helped the band find itself again and saved their career in the process. Over their long existence they’ve gone through a few stylistic transformations: they started out as death metal, then moved into rock, and after that they dropped anchor once more in metal built on melody and a touch of prog.

With Under the Red Cloud, Amorphis wanted to hold on to their modern edge, which shows in the blending of styles. The album opens with the title track, where a pleasant, playful piano leads into a pretty typical Amorphis song with catchy melodic guitars and a standout chorus. But already with the second track, The Four Wise Ones, Amorphis show their aggressive side too, flirting with elements of melodic black metal. Tomi Joutsen’s growl comes through better here. The variety runs through the whole album, which also reflects the good production. There are punchy, bouncy tracks and the occasional gentler one. The band has always made use of folk metal elements too. Amorphis slip this cleverly into a song with a possibly oriental melody, which lets them sidestep a few clichés, although there’s also the cliché-ridden, bouncy Tree of Ages, which with its worn-out folk metal vibe feels more like filler. The album closes with White Night, which is pretty melancholic, and with the addition of female vocals it recalls some Dark Tranquillity songs that used female vocals to bring in more emotion.

The band entrusted the album’s production to the experienced Jens Bogren, who has worked with plenty of melodic and progressive bands so far, so Bogren is without a doubt a producer who knows how to polish a band’s music so it works for bigger crowds. He also made sure the members play their parts: vocalist Tomi Joutsen excellently combines clean and harsh vocals, keyboardist Santeri Kallio nicely spices up the whole thing with his playing and gets a few solo moments of his own, and the guitar duo Holopainen/Koivussari keeps the songs flowing smoothly with melodic, hard-hitting and sometimes simple riffs. Drums and bass don’t stand out much, but they fill their spots solidly.

With ten tracks, Under the Red Cloud definitely delivers. With their consistency the band doesn’t want to let fans down, but they try something new too, though these aren’t any wild excursions that would risk losing fans. But since this is the band’s twelfth studio album, you can’t really expect any drastic changes anymore that would let us talk about some career peak.

Lineup

Tomi Joutsen – vocals

Esa Holopainen – guitar (lead)

Tomi Koivusaari – guitar

Niclas Etelävuori – bass, backing vocals

Santeri Kallio- keyboards

Jan Rechberger – drums

Production

Jens Bogren

Track list