AMORPHIS Silent Waters (2007)

29 July 2007
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For the already swollen discography of Amorphis we could talk for a long time and arguing about it will take even more time and become really vapid. In the framework of a few years the band succeeded to change its members, its style and release a new album a year and a half after the previous one. “Silent Waters” is a logical continuation of “Eclipse” (2006), and if someone did not like it then, it will be tough for him to be impressed by the new songs now. If you have a positive attitude to the changes, the probability to like the latest album is quite big. With a view to the included songs, which were statutable to be put in the previous album, the similarity between them is explicable. Tomi Joutsen made a brilliant start a year ago and now he sounds far more confident. His vocals are varied and he succeeds to attract the attention even in the slower and calmer songs. In “Silent Waters” his more aggressive and gruff way of singing impresses and makes the album one idea better than “Eclipse”. In general, “Silent Waters” is very homogeneous and the modulation between the songs is flowing, but this is a precondition for the absence of really stunning tracks. Definitely the self titled song is easily accessible and “Towards and Against” impresses with its power, but it is tough to put them as leaders, as that was possible in the previous album. We can’t avoid the comparison with the record from 2006, because everything new sounds almost the same as the things recorded back then - full with tough and melodic riffs, with similar melodies to the old ones, and the complete impression is quite good as before. “Silent Waters” continues another tradition of Amorphis, too - to re-create part of the Finnish epic “Kalevala”, which was made in “Eclipse”, but also in the older “Tales from the Thousand Lakes” and “Elegy”. Anyway, after quite many careful hearings, I must recommend the songs mentioned above, as well as the wonderful acoustic masterpiece “Enigma”. It is hard to categorize them as front-runners, because the rest of the tracks also have their qualities and give a general idea about the sound of the whole album. All in all, Amorphis did their job well. Their attempt is successful, and the new CD certainly outstrips its predecessor, but it is not the best they can.
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