I love Opeth and Katatonia: Would I like Amorphis?

I definitely like 'em. Skot/John/unperson/Herman/everyone else to thread to say more.

here's a bit of a lowdown on some of the releases:

'tales from the thousand lakes' has a pretty unique sound to it, and is fairly essential to any serious metal collection. it's mostly doomy, a little proggy, and has some genuinely catchy moments on it, particularly the atypically sped up 'drowned maid'. great cover art and a nice frosty feel to proceedings.

'elegy' is also quite the anomaly in metal. it's actually a really fun record and rarely ventures into overtly dark territory. sort of almost sing-a-long with some fantastic melodic chops. the acoustic reprise of 'my kantele' is really something quite special.

'tuonela' is nice. particularly on the first couple of spins. but i always had very minimal incentive to keep playing it. it's different to the records that came before it, but is a little too comfortable and unadventurous - rather watered-down and thin. nicely performed though, and some pretty choruses.

the latest release, 'silent waters' is a yawn. and for the first time (though it may always have been the case) i get the sense of a band taking itself way too seriously, falling hook, line and sinker into the cliched pitfalls that occasionally characterise the metal genre. never took to the new vocalist as much as pasi, and while this is perhaps the most melodic work since 'elegy', it's pretty stale and soulless. you can play this one to your dream theater-obsessed friends.

Amorphis = A BORE FEST

lol

seriously though, 'tales from the thousand lakes' is great. doom-laden tracks in conventional song length format. and very unique it is too. a really palatable alternative for those who always found my dying bride, early anathema et al a little too dark/depressing/slow/laboured etc.

The early releases are classic death metal with good use of melody (just not of the folk/prog kind, though). But "Tales..." still remains the essential buy.