Amorphis - 2024 - Tales From The Thousand Lakes (Live At Tavastia)

(54:03; Reigning Phoenix Music)

I admit I did some digging around on this album to check I had the details correct, as what we have here appears to be a re-recording of the second album from Amorphis, originally released in 1994. However, what we actually have is the band playing the album in its entirety at the Tavastia Club, but without an audience. I understand how that makes it much easier to get all the cameras in place (this is available in multiple versions, including Blu-ray), and for things to be repeated if there is a need, but when just listening to the audio one wonders what is the point?

I have always preferred live albums, where the band use the energy coming back at them to lift the performance and make it special and many bands have released albums in that form which are head and shoulders above anything they achieved in the studio (Nazareth, UFO, Kiss, just to name a few), but to the listener this just sounds like a studio re-recording. Yes, they play the whole album in its entirety, in order, and the rehearsing and relearning (or learning for the first time) this material must have been a lot of work, but it would have had more power if there had been an audience there to hear it and react to. A nice touch is that the band have added two songs to the end, a cover of Abhorrence’s  “Vulgar Necrolaty” which was originally on their debut single, plus an extended version of “My Kantele” from ‘Elegy’ which was the next album in the sequence, but for most of this one has to wonder why? It’s good, but I would still probably return to the classic original.

Kev Rowland, September 2024

Links:
https://amorphis.net/
https://reigningphoenixmusic.com/