Amoral

Show Your Colours

Written by: PP on 17/06/2009 14:31:10

Amoral is a band that has recently exploded into the Finnish charts with their new album "Show Your Colours", a record that stands roughly halfway between straight up (but poppy) mainstream rock and power/heavy metal, borrowing the occasional epic/colossal soundscape from the latter and the pedal-to-the-floor rock approach from the former to create something that's fairly hard to lump into just one genre. Almost simultaneously to their chart explosion, the band has experienced a huge backlash from older fans, because from what I've read about them, they used to be a progressive technical death / melodic death metal band before this record.

They have a new singer, Ari Koivunen, who interestingly enough is the winner of Finnish Idols in 2007, and the bronze medal winner of Karaoke World Championships in 2005. No wonder that the underground are hissing loudly and abandoning Amoral in tidal waves. Their old vocalist used to growl and scream his way through the heavy songs, but on "Show Your Colours", Mr. Koivunen never even approaches growling or screaming with his soaring clean vocals and occasional shouts. But as much as old fans may despise the 180 degree turnaround in both vocals and genre by principle (I don't blame them, "Year Of The Sucker Punch" is damn close to being pop rock), you've gotta give some credit for Koivunen's pipes. His soaring expression sounds effortless even in a soundscape as huge as this, although he may sound a bit strained at times, and it fits the new style of the band much better.

There are a few tracks which sound like they were written before Koivunen arrived and the band changed style. "A Shade Of Gray" still sounds like a death metal track instrumentally, so it's one of those places where a strained clean vocal delivery sounds misplaced. "Sex N' Satan" is another example of similar instrumental prowess where the clean vocals sound strange, but perhaps the problem is that Koivunen isn't able to growl at all? Future/past live shows will probably tell, and I'm too lazy to go on YouTube to find out, especially because overall I find "Show Your Colours" rather average and boring despite a few highlights.

5

Download: Year Of The Suckerpunch, Release
For the fans of: Rock oriented power metal
Listen: Myspace

Release date 12.05.2009
Spinefarm Records

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