Elegy

Elegy is an extremely important transitional work on which Amorphis, while firmly keeping death metal’s weight, more deeply takes in clean vocals, floating beautiful keyboards and folk melody. Themed on the world of Finland’s folk-poetry collection the Kanteletar, it establishes its own style in which Pasi Koskinen’s clean vocals and Tomi Koivusaari’s growls coexist. Aggression and deep sorrow intersect extremely naturally within the same song, strongly drawing a Nordic, cold, beautiful air. From the powerful drive of the opener “Better Unborn” and the lyricism of the beautiful classic “My Kantele” to a cut like “Against Widows,” every song is engaging, while cuts like “The Orphan” and “On Rich and Poor” convey the work’s fullness. Beneath the heavy riffs, rich melody spreads quietly, and the songs proceed greatly beyond a mere genre frame. A record that became an important foundation, leading to Amorphis’s later years, that widely opened the door from death metal to a broader, more varied musicality. The contrast of light and shade by the two vocalists gives the work rich drama. An extremely polished masterpiece that powerfully pointed to the direction of melodic death metal’s evolution — a record inscribing the band’s leap.