THIS WEEK I’M LISTENING TO...AMORPHIS – Tales From The Thousand Lakes (Live At Tavastia) (Reigning Phoenix Music)

This second Tavastia outing sees Finland’s finest performing their thirty-year-old second album ‘Tales From The Thousand Lakes’ in its entirety, and the first thing which hits you square between the eyes is how contemporary the material sounds: it could easily be the follow-up to 2022’s ‘Halo’, rather than being its twenty-eight year old big brother. Much of that is down to the sheer quality of the band’s songwriting and musical prowess, and the only real difference between then and now is that the extreme vocals have been toned down and the keyboards are in general more upfront on these older songs. ‘Tales...’ always was a truly great album, and this revamped version brings out the power and majesty of the material.

Amorphis_by_jaakko_manninen

photo by Jaakko Manninen

What divides the fans though is the fact that, like its predecessor ‘Queen Of Time – Live At Tavastia’, to misquote ‘Star Trek’, “it’s live, Jim, but not as we know it.” The band do a great job of recreating the album song-by-song onstage, but this this isn’t gig as such – it’s a controlled environment with no audience and so, presumably, plenty of opportunity to stop the tape and put down the cameras any time things need fixing or sorting out. It was a useful way of working during lockdown, but generally if you buy a live album there’s an expectation that it was recorded in front of an audience. That said though there’s little doubt that this is a great band performing some great material; and given that most of the material here has been largely overtaken by the albums which followed it’s fabulous to hear it getting an airing in its entirety.

As the original album is only 40 minutes long a couple of extra tracks are aired to round things off. First off comes the Amorphis take on Abhorrence’s ‘Vulgar Necrolaty’ which appeared as a bonus track on their on their 1992 debut ‘The Karelian Isthmus’ and ensuing ‘Privilege Of Evil’ EP. Then, saving the best till last, a lengthy and grandiose version of ‘My Kantele’ from 1996’s ‘Elegy’ completes the performance.

Video clips:
‘Into Hiding’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bc7Pkv-ba8
‘Drowned Maid’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AecdDeSU_I
‘Black Winter Day’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSpCPVmWagk