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.”

From the primitive scars carved out of early material Secrets Of The Moon have flourished and blossomed, never stagnating and always exploring new ground. One thing that was probably never expected though was the German troupe going conceptually in search of the sun. After all their last opus ‘Seven Bells’ was full of obsidian blackness owing not a small amount to the comparable nightmarish visions of Lars Van Trier’s ‘Antichrist’. Rest assured though, there is no case of lazy sunbathing going on here. Founding member sG illuminates us on the origins of the album and explains it comes from a very dark place indeed. “When we finished the ‘Seven Bells’ album/touring cycle our former bass player and close relative [LSK] committed suicide, our long-time drummer Thelemnar left the band and my mother died of cancer only one month before my daughter was born. I experienced the mysteries of farewell, death, life and birth to an extent I haven’t ever done before. That’s why the album was such a relief to write because I was unable to speak for a long period of time. It showed me how much I needed to make music to survive. The actual title ‘SUN’ is taken … Read More