Ahead of the release of their 13th opus, Amorphis mainstay Tomi Koivusaari spent some time talking to Metal Wani’s Jake Patton about the upcoming album titled Queen of Time, the recording process for the album and the band’s expectations on how it will be received, how the band manages external criticism of their music, and their future touring plans.
Beginning the conversation talking about Queen of Time, Tomi shares his excitement to be releasing a new album “We are very excited, I think this is our deepest and widest album musically. Every song has turned out really good”.
Talking briefly about the return of the bands original bassist Olli-Pekka ‘Oppu’ Laine and his contribution to the album, Tomi shares that one of the tracks which Oppu brought to the band during the recording process made it to the album as a bonus track and that he is excited about it because it “feels like old Amorphis in a way”.
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On whether the band feels any pressure in topping the bands previous album, the well received Under The Red Cloud, Tomi remarks that the band doesn’t try to put any pressure on itself, and that they are ultimately satisfied and feel quite strongly with what they have produced, before discussing the reception of the bands already released track ‘The Bee’.
Queen of Time boasts the impressive feat of being Amorphis’ most ambitious album to date, and the band has taken no shortcut in its creation, partnering again with Jens Bogren to produce and master the album. On working with Jens for the second time, Tomi delves into detail on how the band felt better prepared heading into the studio with him the second time around, and how Jens’ shared vision of the bands work helped introduce some newer elements into the bands songs stating “I think his ideas were great, as it was like having a seventh member of the band”.
On the subject of future touring plans, Tomi talks about the bands upcoming schedule commenting “the last two years we did 120 gigs, no was it more? 220 gigs yes! So I think we will be as busy this time!”, while noting the impending tour dates in Japan in June, the subsequent run of European festivals during the summer, and the headlining tour of North America to close out the year. He also sheds some information about the bands touring plans for 2019, including the possibility of two tours of Europe.
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Tomi closes the interview out by expressing some interest and remaining optimistic when asked about whether or not the band would one day perform these songs live with an orchestra at some special appearances “that would be great! At least for a couple of shows. We have that idea but we haven’t even started to practice the new stuff live! But definitely if we have an opportunity to work with the same people who are guesting on this album. Maybe not this summer, but maybe the next summer”.