The word "Amorphis" is taken from the word "amorphous".
Amorphis, hailed from Finland, is a creative and universal metal band. I can't say they're the greatest because Sentenced nad Impaled Nazarene are good too. Like the name, the band have certainly matched that name as long as 6 years of their existence.
Their music sound derived with each album released. They evolved with their unique sound and never followed trends, unlike the hordes of sound-alikes and wanna-bes. Just listen to their Elegy LP and you can notice the strenght that lies inside Amorphis.
Amorphis was originally consists of two members :
Esa Holopainen - guitarist
Jan Rechberger - drummer
They were quickly joined by Tomi Koivusaari who acted as front man and also guitarist. Tomi Koivusaari was from a grind band called Abhorrence and joined Amorphis when the band broke up. Later, Olli-Pekka Laine join the camp as bassist. They recorded their one and only demo "Disment of Soul" in 1991. After the demo was released, they managed to strike a deal with Relapse Records.
With Relapse, they recorded six songs for a split album with Incantation. Unfortunately, the split never came out and Amorphis pursue their existence by building their own undergrround following. Two from the six songs recorded were released as 7-inch. Their debut LP emerged entitled "The Karellian Isthmus" with atmospheric death metal as their concept. The LP featured jagged doom riffs, grunt vocals and lots of synthesizers to bring the atmospheric effects which after all created a new melodic sound. Relapse released the aborted split LP but with the title "Privilage of Evils" - contains all the six songs recorded for the split LP with Incantation.
In 1994, Amorphis recruited Kasper Mortenson as their permanent keyboard player. The went again into the recording studio (Sunlight Studio) and "Tales From The Thousand Lakes" was unleashed, produced by Thomas Skogberg. The LP became a masterpiece of 1994! The lyrics were based upon Finnish national poem book, "The Kalevala", and mixed with the sound of heavy metal, doom, death metal and progressive rock which stunned the underground community. They managed to tour Europe several times with underground big names such as SENTENCED, PARADISE LOST and others. The band also acted as special guest for Entombed's America's Tour. Keyboardist Kasper Martenson was replaced by Kim Rantala. Kim was unable to meet the band's commitment and Kim was drafted in.
In 1995, "Black Winter Day" EP was released and bring yet another success to their career. The EP featuring the "Black Winter Day" single and other unreleased tracks from the "Tales From The Thousand Lakes" session. The year 1996 brought more success to Amorphis as they released their third full lenght ..... "Elegy". Featuring three new members,
Kim Rantala - keyboardist
Pasi Koskinen - clean vocals
Pekka Kasari - drummer
Tomi still sings but only the grunt part and Pasi handled the clean part. "Elegy" features the bands most compromising sounds and lyrical inspiration from Finnish legendary literature - "The Kanteletar". the LP was recorded in the Sunlight Studio - recently reconstructed - with sound engineer Thomas Skogsberg and produced by the band themselves with the help from Pete "Pee Wee" Coleman from England. "Elegy" is yet another masterpiece of metal with its atmospheric and melodic sounds.
