Amorphis - The Karelian Isthmus (1992)^{Release ID: 2462}

Finnish death metallers Amorphis first came to my attention when I borrowed a cassette copy of their debut album "The Karelian Isthmus" from Neuropath front man Mark Wangmann back in early 1993. I absolutely loved the cover artwork which drew me in & simply commanded me to check out what this brand new band was all about. I was a massive death metal fan at the time (& still are of course) so I was hungrily lapping up anything & everything that I could find in that space but I think it's fair to say that "The Karelian Isthmus" commanded a level of patience from me as it sounds a little bit different to most of the other material I was listening to at the time. Thankfully though, that patience would be rewarded & I'd eventually come around to Amorphis' more melody-centric brand of death metal. The band would blow up in a major way off the back of their 1994 sophomore album "Tales From the Thousand Lakes" shortly afterwards & my brother Ben would become deeply involved with them at the time so they were never far from my ears but "The Karelian Isthmus" seems to have been forced into the annuls of time for the most part, overawed by the fandom around it's more illustrious follow-up. My taste profile has drifted further away from the melodic death metal subgenre over the years though so I've often wondered whether Amorphis' debut might have reduced the gap between itself & the two records that followed it.

While "The Karelian Isthmus" is generally thought of as a more traditional death metal record when compared to later material, I immediately found myself questioning that position upon it hitting my ears for the first time in decades. There's much more to Amorphis' debut than being yet another Scandinavian death metal record. There's already a clear focus on melody that we'd rarely seen in the underground death metal community to the time with the Swedish melodeath explosion still yet to eventuate. In fact, I'd go so far as to claim that "The Karelian Isthmus" is a transitional record that saw Amorphis sitting midway between the more conventional death metal of their disappointing 1991 "Disment of Soul " demo & very solid retrospectively-released "Privilege of Evil" E.P. (originally recorded in 1991 too) & the more obviously melodic "Tales From the Thousand Lakes" with a dual tag of death metal & melodic death metal seeming far more appropriate to me than simply leaving the album standing out like a sore thumb next to the Morbid Angel's & Obituary's. In many respects "The Karelian Isthmus" sits right in a three-way battle between the Swedish death metal sound of Entombed, the early developments in the melodic death metal scene & the doom/death of the Peaceville Three with the doom metal elements being quite regular but never feeling like they're deserving of equal standing with the first two tags. One of the best tracks on the record is a pure doom/death outing though in the excellent "The Lost Name of God" which seems to obviously draw upon Anathema's early recordings for inspiration, particularly their legendary anthem to general despondency "They Die".

The vocals of front man Tomi Koivusaari (Abhorrence/Ajattara) were pretty par for the course for lesser-known death metal outfits of the time & are probably the weakest link for Amorphis here as they're not very interesting to be honest. I also prefer the slower, doomier & more atmospheric moments more than the faster Swedish-inspired stuff which sounds a little bouncy for my taste. "The Pilgrimage" is a really good example of when Amorphis get things right & is the best of the death metal numbers for mine. There are not any weak tracks included here though which is was a big positive in Amorphis' chances of winning me over with time. The cheesier numbers that cancelled out some of the clear highlights on later albums are nowhere to be found here & this has seen the debut simply feeling a little more consistent in its appeal to my personal taste profile. 

You know what? I've never rated "Tales From the Thousand Lakes" as highly as most seem to do. It's always felt like a fairly original record that I mildly enjoy more than one that is vital in my metal journey. I actually rate 2015's "Under the Red Cloud" over it these days to be honest but this week's experiences with "The Karelian Isthmus" have surprisingly seen me placing it above both. I still think 1996's "Elegy" might be Amorphis' best work but it's been so long since I've heard it now that I might need to revisit it in order to firm up that suspicion. In the meantime though, "The Karelian Isthmus" has certainly hit a few runs in the more melodic/atmospheric Finnish death metal space that the earlier efforts from bands like Sentenced played in. Early Swedish death metal acts like Tiamat & Gorement also come to mind as decent points of reference.