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The Boner 
Forum Newbie 
Joined: October 16 2011 Status: Offline Points: 5 |
 Topic: AmorphisPosted: October 26 2011 at 22:17 |
 http://amorphis.net/ Amorphis hail from Finland and have played numerous styles throughout their life as a band. In short, the band have progressed through the years. Starting off as a death metal band with The Karelian Isthmus in1992 on the then-fledgling label, Relapse, the band quickly gained a following. The debut is commonly considered to be an underground death metal classic. The next release, Tales From the Thousand Lakes saw the band incorporate clean vocals and keyboards, along with lyrics concerning the Kalevala (Finland's National Epic), which the band still uses to this day for inspiration. Black Winter Day from Tales From the Thousand Lakes: The band then released what many consider to be their masterpiece, Elegy. This is where the band adopted a 70's progressive sound and combined it with their new clean vocalist, and a folk sound, but still keeping a little of the death metal. A classic in all senses of the word. Weeper on the Shore from Elegy: My Kantele from Elegy: Better Unborn from Elegy: The band would then move onto a guitar based album and picked up some Hawkwind influences, and dropped all the death metal from their sound (except for the vocals on one song). Many consider Tuonela to be one of the band's best. Rusty Moon from Tuonela: Shining from Tuonela: With their next one, Am Universum, the band brought back some of the keyboards, upped the Hawkwind influences and added a saxophone. Grieve Stricken Heart from Am Universum: Forever More from Am universum: Unfortunately, the next album is widely considered the nadir of the band's existence. Far From the Sun was only notable in that it was Pasi Koskinen's (vocalist) final album. Day of Your Beliefs from Far From the Sun The band would then progress again and release what many to believe to be their best album since Elegy, Eclipse. Ushering in a new vocalists, and bringing back the death metal vocals as well as a more brutal attack, while keeping everything together such as the 70's keyboards, acoustics, folk melodies, the band has released 4 albums in quick succession. Eclipse, Silent Waters, Skyforger, and The Beginning of Times have shown a vitality and strength of this truly progressive band. Perkele (The God of Fire) from Eclipse: Shaman from Silent Waters: Sampo from Skyforger: Battle for Light from The Beginning of Times: I hope you all enjoy and discover Amorphis. Edited by The Boner - October 26 2011 at 22:20 |
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yam yam
Special Collaborator 
Crossover Team Joined: June 16 2011 Location: Kerberos Status: Offline Points: 7853 |
Posted: October 26 2011 at 23:19 |
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This is an excellent post indeed for someone who is quite new to the forums - you have included plenty of embedded samples, some relevant commentary on them, and a link to the band's website. Absolutery spot on! The only real problem with your suggestion, I suppose, is that they have been discussed on here 8 times already since February 2006 (not including the current suggestion, I might add) and unfortunately been dismissed as unsuitable for PA every time!! The most recent suggestion was in March of this year (http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=76584).
I personally love the band to bits, and would be thrilled to see them on here, but not everybody that would need to be satisfied to enable this to happen currently agrees, im afraid. True enough, a fair amount of their material clearly falls outside of what we call 'prog', but I think sufficient of it does qualify as prog metal for them to be given a proper evaluation (there is no record of their previous evaluation for PA available on progfreak for us to refer to regarding how the voting went). The band is well covered on our sister site Metalmusicarchives.com, and is also included on the site I just mentioned (that some of our evaluation teams use for tracking the progress of their evaluations), ie. Progfreak.com, where the band is classified as "Atmospheric Non-Prog Power Metal". Interestingly, in the brief overview of the band on Progfreak: http://progfreak.com/Amorphis-51491.html, three users think it is prog, three users think it is merely related to prog and only one user thinks that it's not prog. However, the only albums whose description on the band's discography page (http://progfreak.com/Amorphis-51491.html) actually includes the word 'prog' in it are "Elegy" (prog-related death metal) and the most recent album "The Beginning Of Times" (prog-related extreme metal), so things get even less clear - especially when ALL the albums are classed as progressive metal on Metalmusicarchives.com!!...  The only consolation is that at the end of the last thread which discussed this band (the one linked to above) Bonnek, who is one of the prog metal team on progarchives, said that he personally thought they definitely were Prog Metal, but mainly because of their '95-'00 albums, not their more recent ones. They have been rejected once already by that team, and usually unless more material is issued by a band that can definitely be considered as likely to improve their chances on here, a re-evaluation is not permitted. Based on the fact that only their earlier material is considered to be prog by those that matter on here, (though the album released earlier this year, and since the last evaluation, IS one of the only two to be graced with the word prog on Progfreak.com) I can't really see this being likely in this case...but who knows - there IS a new album, so a re-evaluation could, in theory, be done.  A contentious one - we'll just have to wait and see what comments we get this time...! Edit: What I forgot to mention in all of that rambling above is that there is a facility built into each page on these forums, almost at the top of the page, which looks like this:
 Search - It is useful to pop the name of your band in the dialogue box marked "Search by Keyword" (the rest of the fields should be fairly self-explanatory) - it can save you a lot of wasted work if you do...!! It turned out to be a timely reminder to us nevertheless, so thanks!  Edited by yam yam - October 26 2011 at 23:52 |
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The Boner
Forum Newbie
Joined: October 16 2011 Status: Offline Points: 5 |
Posted: October 26 2011 at 23:34 |
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whoops, sorry. nevermind then
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yam yam
Special Collaborator
Crossover Team Joined: June 16 2011 Location: Kerberos Status: Offline Points: 7853 |
Posted: October 26 2011 at 23:50 |
No need to be sorry - a new album is out, so 'bumping' the topic has done no harm. I edited my last reply to include a bit about the search facility at the top of the page. It is pretty good, and always worth doing before you post a suggestion.
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The Boner
Forum Newbie
Joined: October 16 2011 Status: Offline Points: 5 |
Posted: October 27 2011 at 00:32 |
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i see what happened. i did use the search feature, but it was set to only search the previous six months, which is why i didnt see it.
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Bonnek
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 01 2009 Location: Belgium Status: Offline Points: 4521 |
Posted: October 27 2011 at 02:06 |
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You are excused, you may remind me of Amorphis any day if you like  They were rejected many years ago, maybe as far ago as 4 years, I don't know. So if we take a new look we can only look at the last 2 albums or so, which are only vaguely Prog imo, so I doubt they would get a Yes from everyone. |
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harmonium.ro
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 18 2008 Location: Anna Calvi Status: Offline Points: 22989 |
Posted: October 27 2011 at 07:44 |
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That was a well done presentation for a band suggestion, nevertheless!
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Icarium
Forum Senior Member 
VIP Member Joined: March 21 2008 Location: Tigerstaden Status: Offline Points: 34099 |
Posted: October 27 2011 at 07:56 |
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he deservs an Icecream
 from the admins
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lucas
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 06 2004 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 8138 |
Posted: October 27 2011 at 16:20 |
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I like 'tales from the thousand lakes', but it's melodic death metal.
Their other albums are rather forgettable.
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"Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood)
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Bonnek
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 01 2009 Location: Belgium Status: Offline Points: 4521 |
Posted: October 28 2011 at 02:43 |
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Good for you, doesn't make those other albums anything less proggy though. Edited by Bonnek - October 28 2011 at 02:44 |
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Amorphis
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The Boner wrote: