It is one thing for a band to say how they like to keep trying new things, take chances and not to repeat themselves. Living by those words is a whole other story. Amoral, recently expanded from a quintet into a sextet, has done just so. Starting out as a technical death metal band in the very late 90’s, the band recorded three albums within that genre, steadily growing in popularity and making a name for themselves while touring extensively in Europe and in Japan. But once vocalist Niko Kalliojärvi announced his departure from the group due to his passion to focus on the guitar, Amoral decided it was time to try something new. They quickly announced that they vere looking for a new singer, and that the new guy should be able to sing clean as well as death metal growls. Feeling limited by to non-melodic vocals, the band saw this as their chance to expand their musical pallette.
Enter Ari Koivunen, by then a successful solo artist in his own right, with multiplatinum sales under his belt. Ari, a fan of the band, suggested himself for the job, and it quicky became apparent that Amoral had found their new singer. With Ari’s voice, the band was free to explore and experiment with all their musical ambitions and perversions, from epic anthems to 80’s hard rock -influenced riff-o-ramas and even ballads. While ”Show Your Colors”, the first Amoral album to feature Koivunen on vocals, released in 2009, was a bit of a melting pot of anything and everything, it did give some clues to the potential of this line-up, and songs like ”Release” and ”Exit” paved way to the bands own voice, which would be found a bit later.
”Beneath”, released in 2011, was a step in the right direction, but it was with ”Fallen Leaves & Dead Sparrows”, the bands 6th album, released in 2014, that the band really came into it’s own for the first time since it’s technical death metal era. The decision to focus specifically on the progressive and epic ideas, and merge those with metal riffs familiar from the bands past was welcomed with open arms, both by the press and the fans. And judging by the fact that the band was still 100% happy with and proud of the album more than a year after it’s completion, it was an easy call to continue on this path.
But of course, simply recording a follow-up would have been too easy, too normal. It was time to shake things up again. The role of keyboards, played by the band’s guitarist Masi Hukari, had been growing within the new Amoral material. The guitar layers had been getting bigger, with multiple parts arranged to be played simultaneously. And the band could actually use another voice as well… It made perfect sense to ask Kalliojärvi, by now a more than capable guitar player in addition to being the owner of one of the best, nastiest growls in the business, if he might be interested in re-joining the band. Not only as a vocalist this time, but also as a guitar player, to free up Masi to play keyboards in songs that asked for the instrument, and to provide a three-guitar attack on others. Niko, surprised by the suggestion, thought about it. And the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He was in.
In March 2015 it was announced: Amoral was now a six-piece. The band had been writing, planning and rehearshing in secrecy for months by then, and the recording of the 7th album, which would be called ”In Sequence”, was well under way already. With this new progmetal big band of a line-up, all bets were off. The complex, grandiose compositions of Amoral founder, guitarist Ben Varon were brought to life by the whole band, and the dynamic duo of Koivunen and Kalliojärvi, with the former’s angelic voice and the latter’s demonic growls, take turns in telling the Varon-penned story. ”In Sequence” is a concept album based loosely on a true story Ben had been told about a young, extraordinarily talented but very troubled musician taking his own life while institutionalized. The story is being told from multiple points of view, and is largely about trying to figure out what had led to this tragic decision.
With the subject being this heavy, so is the music behind it dark, somber and haunting. It is heavy as all hell in parts, but not at the expense of the melodies, which were again the band’s main concern. The choruses needed to be beautiful. The guitar leads needed to be expressive and musical. The arrangements needed to be original and surprising. And the riffs needed to be hard, intricate, and just plain cool.
”In Sequence” surely features some of the boldest and strongest musical ideas in the bands history. Or when was the last time you heard industrial samples, ethnic percussion, soprano saxophone, a full orchestra, blast beats, Mellotrons, theremins, choirs and thrash riffs all on the same album? Exactly.
Line-up:
Niko Kalliojärvi – vocals
Ari Koivunen – Vocals, guitar
Ben Varon – guitar, backing vocals
Masi Hukari, guitar, keyboards
Juhana Karlsson – drums
Pekka Johansson – bass