Amorphis has been steadily popping out albums every 2 years or so ever since new singer/growler Tomi Joutsen (those dreads!) joined the band... and the output has been pretty consistently awesome, especially Silent Waters and Skyforger. Things got a bit stale on The Beginning of Times, so for this album, they decided to mix things up a bit by having Peter Tagtgren (one time vocalist for Bloodbath, who owns a fucking village (www.ultimatemetal.com)!) produce instead of Marco Hietala (who produced all of the aforementioned albums), and writing about an original story rather than the Kalevala.

3.5/5 - while still not quite as good as Silent Waters or Skyforger, it gets up there, and is better than The Beginning of Times. A nice return to form!