Finnish death metal godfathers Amorphis have recently given us the opportunity of seeing them perform material recorded right back in 1994, looking back to their second album ‘Tales Of A Thousand Lakes’ on its 20th Anniversary. Lead guitarist and founding member Esa Holopainen has been there all along and one has to wonder if they have everything down to an easily workable formula now that they have finalised their 12th studio album ‘Under The Red Cloud’? How do the road dogs even find the time to record, perhaps they write the material on the back of the tour bus between shows? Esa makes it quite clear that this is simply not an option. “I think it’s an impossible idea. It’s such an uninspiring environment when you are on the tour bus. I don’t know how any musician can do that. Usually what happens is, when we have done enough touring, we start little by little to write new music. In the week we are at home and can concentrate on writing. That’s the way of the business though; you have to be on tour if you want to make a living out of it.”

Disgrace’s ‘Debts Of God’ EP, Convulse’s ‘World Without God’, Funebre’s ‘Children Of The Scorn’ and Demigod’s ‘Slumber Of Sullen Eyes’, without knowing it, were albums that shaped the sound of what would later become tagged as the ultimate Finnish death metal sound. Alas this early-’90s scene’s most important players were already rotting six feet under, after only one demo and an EP. Abhorrence‘s short-lived tenure survived the years because over the course of only 13 minutes, their sole self-titled 7” laid down the foundations upon which not only the highly-successful Amorphis was built but a large portion of the Finn-death movement as well.

Over the years, rumours of an official re-release of the band’s scarce recordings were floating around while, in the meantime, their former vocalist Jukka Kolehmainen set to open an official memorial website where one could download for free their two official recordings to counterfeit bootleggers. That is until May this year, when Svart Records finally released their officially-sanctioned 16 track (21 if you fell for the vinyl version) discography ‘Completely Vulgar’, compiling both their EP and demo plus live and rehearsal odds ‘n’ sods. Thus, Jukka Kolehmainen agreed to take us back to those sweet teenagers years when … Read More