Reptile Ride

Reptile Ride is the third album, released in 2007, on which Amoral gathered complex rhythms — odd time signatures included — and keen guitar riffs into aggressive songs. It was recorded at Studio Sound Supreme in Hämeenlinna early that year, produced by Janne Saksa, and released in Japan on 10 August and elsewhere on the 15th. The technique is up front, yet the songs never turn cold: there is strong movement inside the fierce playing. The five-piece is Niko Kalliojärvi (vocals), Ben Varon and Silver Ots (guitars), Erkki Silvennoinen (bass) and Juhana Karlsson (drums). True to the ferocity of the title, the album strings together turns that are hard to predict. The opener “Leave Your Dead Behind” became the album's only single and got a video. Short pieces like the three-minute “Hang Me High” and “D-Drop Bop” alternate with tracks past five minutes such as “Few and Far Between” and “Pusher,” and the nine songs never sag across roughly 42 minutes. That it still keeps its hooks shows the band's structural command. Aki Siltala again supplies the cover. This closed the early growl era, before Kalliojärvi left for a time.