Amorphis - Tales from the Thousand Lakes (1994)

My first introduction to Amorphis was the farthest possible example of music from this album. Today they're more of an average Finnish heavy metal band; with catchy riffs, clean vocals that sometimes find death growls intermingled, and albums released that sound.. catchy and similar to the one released before it. (Kind of like owning 20 of the same album. But I'm not gonna lie, I own at least 10 of them). They've come a long way since Tales from the Thousand Lakes. However, a friend once told me that he hadn't met a metalhead who hasn't heard of this album. Enter me!

     Tales is a concept album, not the last one they'll do, based on the Finnish novel Kalevala. This album holds a complex sub-genre argument throughout it's entirety. While it's predominantly death metal, it also holds an influence of doom, melodic, and heavy or alternative themes and even folk metal. This being an earlier album than what they're known for now, this album incorporates clean vocals throughout dominant death metal vocals. Don't let the sound of synthesizers worry you, the use is far from any Bon Jovi type of sound, and is a consistent sound the band carries to this day, albeit more refined and slightly more tolerable to listen to. If it's not the entire album you can find yourself able to listen through, at least give Black Winter Day the few moments it deserves in comparison to how far the band has grown to today. A remarkable album that is "so 90's". I'm now reminded that I need to buy this band shirt.