Show Your Colors

Show Your Colors, released on 6 May 2009, is the turning point at which Amoral kept their old weight while taking on clean vocals and strong melody in a big way. In November 2008 the new singer was announced: Ari Koivunen, winner of the 2007 Finnish Idols — a man who took that title singing metal and rock rather than pop. It is also bassist Pekka Johansson's first appearance. The growls were replaced wholesale by clean vocals, and big choruses moved to the front. When the 1:51 acoustic overture “Random Words” clears, “Release” opens the record proper on a fast guitar lick. The advance track “Year of the Suckerpunch” became the most requested song of 2009 on the national station YleX, and “Gave Up Easy” followed as a single. It entered at No. 19 in Finland in its first week and was voted fifth-best domestic metal album at that year's Finnish Metal Awards. It was also released in the UK, Germany, the US, Canada and Japan. The scale of the change drew both praise and anger, but the hooks carry real conviction, and the will to cross genre borders keeps the whole record fresh.