Angry Metal Guy

Amorphis // The Beginning of Times
Rating: 3.0/5.0 — Angry Amorphis Fanboy = Disappointed
Label: Nuclear Blast [EU | US]
Websites: amorphis.net | myspace.com/amorphis | facebook.com/amorphis
Release Dates: EU: 2011.05.27 | US: 06.06.2011

I have to say that Amorphis‘ The Beginning of Times is one of the most anticipated records of the year and it marks a little bit of an Angry Metal Milestone™ as it was my review of Skyforger that really was the first review I posted that blew up and attracted a lot of new visitors. It’s been a busy couple years since the band released Skyforger, having released a live DVD and a disc with re-recordings of the band’s older material, they’ve really been everywhere (except here in Sweden playing shows that I could attend). But I think it’s fair to say that my expectations for The Beginning of Times were through the roof and when I finally received the promo I was practically shaking with anticipation to get tracks into iTunes and to slap on the monitors. Continue reading

It’s hard to make this kind of broad list, I just want to say that from the get-go. How do you do this? Do you choose your favorites, or do you choose the genre defining records? Because saying, for example, that some of the following records are really genre defining wouldn’t be true. On the other hand, these are the records that when I go back and look at the 2000s I think of pretty immediately as some of the best stuff and the things that I keep coming back to.

But the 2000s have been an interesting time for metal in a lot of ways. One of the things that happened was that death metal and death metal-influenced music really hit the mainstream in a lot of ways. For the first time since the 1980s there were larger groups of young people who really started getting into metal and there is an entire generation of musicians who have been influenced by the heavy metal of the 80s and the underground of the 1990s (particularly black and death metal). While I believe that metal is on the ebb again (in a popular music sense) and will once again retreat underground to lick its wounds and come up with something fascinating, interesting and new, the 2000s have been a great time to be a fan of the genre.

This list is going to take a lot of hits. I can already hear some of them, and some of them will come out of left field. But, as usual, I refuse to apologize for my taste. The focus on “magazine metal” bands will probably irritate some, and others will argue that my choices from one genre or another aren’t representative of the best of that genre during the period (specifically death metal in this case). But when I look back on the last 9 years, these are the ones that stand out. And trust me, there’s some stuff that I wish I could get on there, but I didn’t include an honorable mentions section since I expanded the list to 15. But there are some amazing records (Moonsorrow‘s Hävitetty, Anata‘s Under a Stone with No Inscription and The Conductor’s Departure, Agalloch‘s The Mantle, Turisas‘ The Varangian Way, Necrophagist‘s Epitaph, Ásmegin‘s Hin Vordende Sod & Sø, Absu‘s Tara, Rhapsody‘s Power of the Dragonflame, Anathema‘s A Fine Day to Exit, Nile‘s Black Seeds of Vengeance, Otyg‘s Sagovindars Boning, Obscura‘s Cosmogenesis, Watain‘s Sworn to the Dark, Akercocke‘s Antichrist, Enslaved‘s Below the Lights are just a few of my major oversights) that came out during this period that haven’t ended up on this list and I’m aware of that.

Anyway, I hope you find this list enjoyable, shocking, provocative and maybe even dead on. Backwards this time…

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Amorphis // Magic & Mayhem: Tales from the Early Years
Rating: 3.5/5.0 — Warning: score may be result of flagrant fanboyism.
Label: Nuclear Blast [EU | US]
Websites: amorphis.net | myspace.com/amorphis
Release Dates: EU: 17.09.2010 | US: TBA

Legal Disclaimer: Long time readers of the mighty AMG may have noticed that Mr. AMG is a shameless Amorphis fanboy.  While his epic fanboyism runs to their newer material, I myself am an unapologetic fanboy for their older material, especially their first three albums, which I hold in extremely high regard. Therefore, my review of Magic & Mayhem, an album of re-recordings from those very albums, is subject to some serious fanboy bias and perhaps AMG should have handled this himself to insure a more objective (yet still fanboyish) viewpoint. Now that I satisfied those eggheads in the AMG legal department by disclosing said bias, we can proceed with the freaking review! [Whatevs, we're good with fanboyism so long as I agree with it. - AMG]

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Amorphis // Forging the Land of Thousand Lakes
Rating: 4.5/5.0 — The first time I’ve ever recommended a DVD
Label: Nuclear Blast (EU | US)
Websites: amorphis.net | myspace.com/amorphis
Release Dates: EU: 09.07.2010 | US: 07.13.2010

Amorphis is a band that needs no introduction, particularly if you’ve been reading this zine for more than a few weeks. When Skyforger came out in 2009, I was fortunate enough to be able to catch it on MySpace at the time and put up a review of it on this site: it was actually one of the first things that started increasing traffic to this site. At the time that I wrote the review I was particularly laudatory of the band’s new material. Despite the wave against them because they never re-wrote The Karelian Isthmus or Tales from the Thousand Lakes again, I have been nothing but enchanted by the last three albums. They are, for lack of a better word, genius. Modern, melodic metal done with class and style, Eclipse, Silent Waters and Skyforger are three of the best album from the 2000s and have re-established the legacy of a band that has seemed to have lost its way at times. Continue reading