A few summers ago my attention was recaptured in regards to heavy metal, which I had essentially put aside in the early part of the 90s to explore punk and other styles. My main beef with metal in the early part of the decade was the rapid stagnation of many of the more noticeable bands and overall cheesiness that was pervading the scene. The benefit of this stagnation and retreat to the underground is that the bands who truly wanted to play metal did so without the distraction of the mainstream spotlight. That may have allowed for honest creativity. Eventually I came around to paying attention to metal again thanks to efforts of bands such as Amorphis, who were truly carving their own path.
Elegy is a truly remarkable album.
Amorphis had spent the better part of the decade as a budding death metal band that kept sneaking melodic folk influence into their music. As you can imagine, that is one scene not crowded at all. Elegy comes alive with warmth that some of the 70s progressive acts could only capture but with much more intricate and engaging guitar structure. There is a certain cold isolation to the music that does make it a little stark at first, but that could be attributed to the new band chemistry of the new singer and keyboardist. Elegy splits the vocals up between the somewhat gruff, but melodic clean singing and the old death vocals.