Amorphis will be releasing a brand new album soon from Nuclear Blast, which certainly had most fans I spoke to at Maryland Deathfest excited. Jan Rechberger has high hopes for the album and gave us a progress report of sorts and what to expect.

“It’s going good! I’m really happy with the results so far. I believe we are in the mixing stage at the moment. Some instruments are still being recorded and there is some background vocals to record next week, but I think the mixing has started. It should be ready in a couple of weeks. It’s going to be heavier than the previous stuff. More aggressive and more epic in every way I can possibly imagine. Lots of orchestration and female vocals, lot of grunt vocals, clean vocals, and pretty much every element our band is known for. I think it’s coming out in September.”

 

There have been quite a large list of notable bands to come from Finland, a country seemingly acting as a well oiled machine, consistently pumping out great metal music. There had to be some reason behind why Finland has become a farm of sorts cultivating band after band, all just as exciting as the next. The answer I received had both myself and Mr. Rechberger laughing but was quite insightful.

“There’s only one answer and it’s a bit cliché but it is dark and cold and depressing all the time and we have nothing else to do but fucking play metal. Its hard to say, before when we started, there were no metal bands being known outside of Finland, mainly just some underground metal bands. I really don’t know the reason besides the depressiveness and darkness but also the level of education in music is really high in Finland we have really good schools for musicians. Lots of professional musicians in Finland with good teaching going on. I guess of late more and more of these bands are making it so others believe they can make it so they keep playing metal and keep coming. I get this question a lot but really didn’t think about it like that before. I guess it’s the same in Sweden as there’s lots of Swedish bands also. So maybe the environment and circumstances of Scandinavia drives people to make metal I guess.”

Amorphis, by Hillarie Jason Photography

With all of these bands coming out of Finland, both metal and non-metal, Jan was able to speak on some of the local music he enjoyed, but like many, cannot seem to keep track of all of it.

“Yeah there’s a lot of rock and pop acts and Finnish hip hop. I don’t really listen to them really, nothing against them though! But I don’t really listen to Finnish bands that much. There’s a lot of metal bands really good ones and lots of good rock and classic bands from the 70s and 90s. Mostly the 70s progressive style of bands, bands that you probably don’t know really that I was into back when making Tales. But there’s so many rock bands in Finland I lost track years ago.”

 

Amorphis may be busy writing a new album, going out on tour, and playing the festival circuits, but there is always something to do on the down side. Jan actually keeps himself quite busy between his studio and being a father.

“My studio at home keeps me busy. I record some bands, mostly electronic music. I also have a family with two kids (aged ten and seven). Basically touring and making music takes up most of my time anyways. I do like to play football though.”

TIM LEDIN