Amorphis – Eclipse

Eclipse was an important album for Amorphis. It's the band's first album since the departure of vocalist Pasi Koskinen, whose voice had become a large part of Amorphis's signature sound. To meet this challenge, Amorphis has gone back to their roots, in more ways than one. They returned to the Finnish national epic the Kalevala for inspiration, which had worked so well for the band on Elegy and Tales From the Thousand Lakes. They also brought back death metal vocals, courtesy of new singer Tomi Joutsen.

Does it pay off? Absolutely. As much as I enjoyed the later Amorphis albums, Elegy has always been my favorite. I thought the combination of clean and death metal vocals worked extremely well on that album, and it succeeds on Eclipse as well. I admit I had my doubts about Joutsen. When I saw Amorphis in 2005, he really nailed the older songs like “Black Winter Day,” but seemed uncomfortable on cleaner tracks. Fortunately, he made significant improvements for this album. His clean vocals may not rival Koskinen's, but his death vocals add an element that Amorphis has been missing for quite some time, and I think long-time fans will appreciate the return to a more aggressive sound.

Eclipse really is a return to form for Amorphis. In many ways, this album reminds me of Elegy, which I think has to be a good thing. The more aggressive style is a nice reminder that Amorphis is, after all, a metal band.