Beneath

Beneath is the fifth album, released in October 2011, on which Amoral moved between heavy metal riffs, hard rock melodic feeling and progressive development inside a single record. Silver Ots left in January 2010 and Masi Hukari came in, sharing lead guitar with Ben Varon and co-writing two songs. It was recorded in February 2011 at Sound Supreme Studios in Hämeenlinna, produced by Janne Saksa and Varon, and mastered by Svante Forsbäck. That year the band began calling their music “classic rock for the 21st century” — a declaration that, as with Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Queen and Sabbath, they would not settle into one mould. The range is wide: from the 8:46 title track to the straightforward “Silhouette” and “Same Difference,” to “(Won't Go) Home,” which recalls the death metal years, to “Wastelands,” where acoustic guitars converse with industrial textures. The video for “Wrapped in Barbwire” nods to Guns N' Roses' “Garden of Eden.” It was voted fourth-best domestic metal album at the Finnish Metal Awards.