Brilliant. That one word sums up this entire album. In a span of less than two years from their debut, Amorphis have grown leaps and bounds into something truly special. Bringing in keyboardist Kasper Martenson, Amorphis have focused on creating atmosphere and various moods within the listener while expanding on their melodic tendencies to create a Metal classic.

"Thousand Lakes" opens the album with a beautiful keyboard instrumental that gives way for "Into Hiding", with guitarist/vocalist Tomi Koivusaari's low Death moan being accompainied by a session "clean" vocalist in the form of Ville Tuomi. This brings a new dimension to the Amorphis sound and goes a long way to establishing various moods in the songs that these vocals appear ("Into Hiding", "The Castaway", "Black Winter Day", "In The Beginning" and "To Father's Cabin"). Musically, this really has nothing to do with Death Metal as the emphasis is on melody and atmosphere and the songs themselves are slower to mid paced as opposed to the frequent fast tempoed nature and blast beat sections of the debut. While taking in these songs, I get the feeling of standing on the shore of a great sea, with the wind blowing through the evening sheltered by a clear blue sky...Some of the best riffs ever written make up these songs and every song here is just as good as the next...The consistency of quality over the course of this album is staggering. No song is out of place or less effective than any other making this album repeat listening material...when it's over you just want to hit play again and again and again...

The concept of Tales From The Thousand Lakes is taken from the Finnish national pole book, Kalevala, which is made up of short poems of Finnish folklore that portray the life of ancient Finnish culture. Given this, it is no surprise when the band incorporate Finnish folk music into a few of the songs, especially the closer "Magic And Mayhem".

Produced at the legendary Studio Sunlight by Tomas Skogsberg, Tales From The Thousand Lakes is blessed with a great production to accentuate the magnificence of the music.To have come this far so soon is testament to the incredible talent and uniquness of the members of Amorphis...More than six years since its release it still sounds every bit as magical today as it did then...Classic.

This review is credited to:
palewake