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Four year after their latest full-length release, Finnish prog-metal heavyweights Amorphis drop their new record Halo on February 11th via brand-new label Atomic Fire Records. It’s a mighty solid album, with a big, dynamic sound that oscillates between moments of brutal heaviness, catchy melodic hooks, bombastic orchestral arrangements and folk-tinged progressiveness. Packing at least four/five big songs destined to become epic additions to the band's huge catalogue, Halo has everything we have come to expect from the Finns and consolidates Amorphis’ status as one of the most unique and relevant voices in metal.
The album was written and recorded by the same line-up who brought us Queen of Time in 2018, and it loosely follows similar musical coordinates. The core of the music is folk-tinged melodic death metal, which Amorphis enrichen with an impressive kaleidoscope of influences. There are traces of 1970’s prog-rock and psychedelia - an influence the Finns have held dear since their early days -, with big swathes of Hammond organ, trippy delay-effected guitars, and awesome synths solos surfacing at multiple places throughout the album. Meanwhile, the subtle use of loops and electronic effects adds a touch of modernity to the music. Meanwhile, the orchestral and choir arrangements of Francesco Ferrini (Fleshgod Apocalypse) add a distinctive symphonic flavour to the proceedings, with a bombast that at times calls to mind Hollywood soundtrack music (“The Moon”).
In interviews, producer Jens Bogren and band members have described Halo as both heavier and poppier relative to Amorphis’ previous albums. In a weird way, they are both right. The album’s heavy parts are massive, with fast and meaty guitar riffs that cut through Tomi Joutsen’s cavernous growls, while Jan Rechberger’s plummeting drums raise hell in the background. But Halo is also a tremendously melodic record, with plenty of soaring guitar leads and solos as well as a huge amount of catchy vocal melodies. Tomi Joutsen’s clean vocals are more expressive and brighter than ever, which strongly contributes to the album’s uplifting and vibrant feel. In fact, this is perhaps the aspect of Halo that I found most striking after listening to it a few times: the whole record buzzes with an energy that is almost primal and is simply irresistible. Yet, at the same time the album is pervaded by a thick air of melancholia and gravity, resulting in a formidable contrast that is well-captured in the LP’s chiaroscuro artwork, courtesy of French artist Jean-Emmanuel ‘Valnoir’ Simoulin.
The album sounds great, organic and well-balanced, with a production that is clean and modern without feeling plasticky and toothless. There are plenty of highlights across the record’s 55 minutes. The first half is irresistible, with the trio of tracks “On The Dark Waters”, “The Moon” and “Windmane” constituting the creative peak of the LP. The riffs are engrossing and the melodies are splendid, striking the right balance between catchiness and artistry and managing to be memorable without being obvious. There’s also a couple of detours from the usual verse/chorus structure in these tracks, with space for solos and instrumental breaks, like the sitar-sounding guitar solo that surfaces on “On The Dark Waters”, or the amazing synth solo on “Windmane”. This track is probably my favourite of the whole album, with the huge contrast between its speed-of-light verse (pay attention to the spectacular drumming!) and the more relaxed and dreamy chorus.
Unfortunately, in the middle of the album things perhaps start to drag a little, as the use of the same songwriting formula, tightly set around the repetition of hard/fast verse and melodic/slow chorus, starts to feel a tad monotonous. The songs between “A New Land” and “War” tend to blur into one another, and even repeated listens do not help a great deal to memorize the differences between them. The main issue here, I think, is that these four tracks do not quite possess the magic spark that instead ignites the trio of songs on the first half of the record. The melodies are slightly less fresh, the riffs a tad less inspired. And as soon as the quality of the material drops a little, monotony inevitably sets in when the songs are structurally so similar to one another.
It is only with the title-track “Halo” – a much poppier and lighter piece that breaks the formula of the previous songs - that things pick up again. The album closes even more strongly with the riff deluge of “The Wolf” and the beautiful acoustic rendition of “My Name Is Night”, a sombre track that feels distinctively diverse from the rest of the album, giving me strong Katatonia vibes, as Swedish singer Petronella Nettermalm (Paatos) splendidly duets with Tomi Joutsen. A fantastic way to close the album.
Although I am left longing for a little more variety in the material that could help sustain attention throughout the album’s duration, Halo is nevertheless a strong record that will for sure please fans of the band. The LP shows without a doubt that Amorphis are still alive and well, and have not lost an ounce of the energy and freshness of their early days. Album after album, the Finns keep impressing with their ability to compose slight variations on a theme that time and again delivers massive songs of the highest possible quality. This is no less true on Halo, with tracks like “On The Dark Waters”, “The Moon”, “Windmane”, “Halo”, “The Wolf” and “My Name is Night” that are all stardom material, making the album a simply mandatory listening for any metal fan.
[Originally written for The Metal Observer]