New Amorphis album

[Eurynome]

K: The jaw doesn't fit there IMO
Xp: Not at all. The bright white colour of the thingy in the middle, either.
T: In my opinion it could look better without the jaw and the hannunvaakuna-symbol could be bit darker

Alright, here's v.2.0 for you guys.

(Absolutely no disrespect to the artist intended. As I said before, I like his stuff, with or without bones.

)

The Inuit link is not meant to be an explanation of where the image comes from so much as it reminded me of the link between the Shaman and the sleigh and magic deer/elk/moose as the helper that carries the soul to the other side. The last part is not much of a stretch, knowing what we do about Pekka Kainulainen.

No big stretch indeed, in fact it totally fits the picture. Thanks a lot for that info. I wonder if similar myths exist in the arctic regions of our country. The Sámi are different from the Inuit, of course, but Shamanism was their predominant system of belief until the 18th century and attempts to preserve the old traditions have never been altogether abandoned (I'm not speaking of the "shaman performances" for tourists, but then again, maybe those get at least a few visitors interested in the matter as such).

Kainulainen's art (and personality, I daresay, although I've only experienced him twice in person) draws very strongly on shamanic imagery, and he didn't play the "deer man" for the first time in that video trailer. BTW @Tuuletar: have you seen Pekka's paintings? Check them out if not, you'll find the style and motifs partly familiar.

I did read about the fact that most of us humans have a "little" dna related to the neanderthals, and most of the connection was northern Europe.

The monthly supplement of our leading newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat) featured an extensive article about related findings in a Finnish cave a little while ago.

A walk through downtown Helsinki in the wee hours of Sunday morning is all you need to realize how strong said DNA still is in modern-day Finns.

 

[Tuuletar]

Yes, now it's much better!

BTW @Tuuletar: have you seen Pekka's paintings? Check them out if not, you'll find the style and motifs partly familiar.

Thanks for the link! Somehow I have missed his paintings, but they are cool stuff indeed. "Kevät ja kuolema" is my favourite. And funny coincidence is that there actually are deer antlers and -skull in one of my latest paintings.
I can't help it, but somehow that "flower head"-stuff reminded me of one photo...

 

[Eurynome]

I can't help it, but somehow that "flower head"-stuff reminded me of one photo...

Yeah, I was there. My first impression of Pekka, and quite unforgettable. He recited the original Finnish version of the poem that became "I Of Crimson Blood". Wish I had a video of it, but I didn't even have my camera with me.

 

[tuonelan]

No big stretch indeed, in fact it totally fits the picture. Thanks a lot for that info. I wonder if similar myths exist in the arctic regions of our country. The Sámi are different from the Inuit, of course, but Shamanism was their predominant system of belief until the 18th century and attempts to preserve the old traditions have never been altogether abandoned (I'm not speaking of the "shaman performances" for tourists, but then again, maybe those get at least a few visitors interested in the matter as such).

Kainulainen's art (and personality, I daresay, although I've only experienced him twice in person) draws very strongly on shamanic imagery, and he didn't play the "deer man" for the first time in that video trailer. BTW @Tuuletar: have you seen Pekka's paintings? Check them out if not, you'll find the style and motifs partly familiar.

The Nordic Mythology class I took as an undergraduate was taught by a professor who specialized in Sami history. He used the Sami as a bridge culture to talk about Norse, Finn, Siberian and Inuit Shamanic practices as part of a Circumpolar worldview. Really interesting stuff that made a very deep impression on me and the biggest reason why I connected with Amorphis as strongly as I did when I first discovered them.

I think Kainulainen gets it on a deep level.

 

[Eurynome]

I think Kainulainen gets it on a deep level.

On a side note, here's the translator's (E. Pohjanpalo os. Virta) answer to the question how closely or loosely the lyrics are based on the Kalevala this time:

"Well, not as closely as on the same band's earlier albums. In fact this is not connected to the stories or characters of the Kalevala at all, but rather leaning towards the spiritual heritage. IMO the press releases about the album give a fitting description. The original text is good and the author would be interested in expanding it into various forms."

 

[xptrinity]

Alright, here's v.2.0 for you guys.

(Absolutely no disrespect to the artist intended. As I said before, I like his stuff, with or without bones.

)

Much better, yes!

 

[Karhu]

A walk through downtown Helsinki in the wee hours of Sunday morning is all you need to realize how strong said DNA still is in modern-day Finns.

GROG! ME GROG!

 

[tuonelan]

Just preordered the 2 disk CD/DVD version from Recordshop X. Shipping to the US was quite reasonable (<3&#8364. May arrive after the US release date like last time, but I don't mind. I trust them more than I trust CM Distro here in the US.

Starting to get a little excited already.

 

[Karhu]

I trust them more than I trust CM Distro here in the US.

What's wrong with CM Distro? I haven't had any problems, plus they always throw in a few free demo CDs.

 

[tuonelan]

CM Distro irritates me because of the way they price things. They give you a low price and then they add in a dollar per CD handling before they put in the shipping. It starts to feel like buying tickets and having them add in the venue fee and the ticket printing fee and all the other crap that turns a $20 ticket into a $35 ticket even before they add the tax.

That and I'm not impressed with the lack of priority that they give to European bands. It seems like they wait until the last minute to update their releases for any of the bands I'm interested in.

In short, there's nothing wrong with CM Distro, but they haven't done enough right to make up for the ways in which they irritate me, personally.

 

[Eurynome]

Tune in to Radio Rock at 6 pm Finnish time (GMT+2h, click the "Kuuntele" button near the top of the page to listen to the livestream) tomorrow to hear the new single & a few words from Tomi J & Esa.

 

[Karhu]

Tune in to Radio Rock at 6 pm Finnish time (GMT+2h, click the "Kuuntele" button near the top of the page to listen to the livestream) tomorrow to hear the new single & a few words from Tomi J & Esa.

Record it?

 

[Tiiti]

Hopefully it goes to the Radio City´s podcast, can´t be by the radio at the time.

 

[Eurynome]

Record it?

Blizk/Xptrinity? I'll be travelling at that time and might therefore miss it myself. Podcast would be cool, but I'm not counting on it, they've been pretty lazy about uploading any interesting stuff

 

[xptrinity]

Blizk/Xptrinity? I'll be travelling at that time and might therefore miss it myself. Podcast would be cool, but I'm not counting on it, they've been pretty lazy about uploading any interesting stuff

I'll be in the office at that time and since I'm on Ubuntu there, I'm not sure if I'd be able to record it (I have found my way around Ubuntu for the basic stuff, but that's pretty much it). But I think that either way, it will be on air on all rock/metal stations within the next couple of days.

 

[xptrinity]

&#1054;&#1050;, so... Hopeless Days is good. Starts off a bit like Hypocrisy (which is not bad in my books), has a Nightwish moment in the end (don't know what to make of this, really), but the rest is good. And quite heavy-ish If this is the radio song, I can only speculate about the rest :Smokedev:

 

[Luoto]

Not your typical Amorphis single in the sense that it's not fronted by many catchy melody lines (Shades of Gray is catchier for example). It's kind of like a rhythmically streamlined "Soothsayer" with Hypocrisy-ish guitar riffing. Also a prominent piano line in the verse.

 

[koivusaari]

Nice piano, FAT drums (oh yeah!), although no growl vocals. But it's a nice one!

 

[xptrinity]

Nice piano, FAT drums (oh yeah!), although no growl vocals. But it's a nice one!

The growls would scare the housewives

 

[tuonelan]

Trin has convinced me. "Music to Scare Housewives" has my vote for the next Amorphis album's working title. Tätgren, please make it so.