Band:	Octoploid
Album:	Beyond The Aeons
Style:	Progressive death metal, Folk metal
Release date:	July 05, 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. The Dawns In Nothingness [feat. Mikko Kotamäki]
02. Coast Of The Drowned Sailors [feat. Tomi Koivusaari & Janitor Muurinen]
03. Human Amoral [feat. Tomi Joutsen]
04. Shattered Wings [feat. Samu Leminen & Petri Eskelinen]
05. Beyond The Aeons [feat. Samu Leminen]
06. The Hallowed Flame [feat. Mikko Kotamäki]
07. Concealed Serenity [feat. Mikko Kotamäki]
08. A Dusk Of Vex [feat. Jón Aldará & Ile Laaksomaa]
09. Monotony [feat. Petri Eskelinen] [bonus]

Something has really gotten into the Amorphis boys in the past few years; while none of them have had an exclusivity with the band for their music, it is remarkable that within 3 years, half the band’s members have released debut albums for projects featuring rosters of guest vocalists.

Esa Holopainen was the first to kick this trend off with the 2021 debut album of his solo project Silver Lake, and Tomi Koivusaari followed a couple of years later with his own solo project Bjørkø. On each album, the bandleader was confined to guitar and songwriting duties, recruiting studio bands and a litany of renowned vocalists from European metal to bring their visions to fruition. Olli-Pekka Laine, who rejoined Amorphis as bassist in 2018 after nearly 2 decades apart, had already made a substantial musical impact outside of the band through his work with Barren Earth, but the formation of his new band Octoploid has provided an opportunity to take a more central creative role. What’s fascinating about this is how it has led to the revival of an acclaimed but long-dormant sound.

It's first worth noting that, unlike Silver Lake and Bjørkø, Octoploid is a full-fledged band, one in which Laine reunites with former Amorphis keyboardist Kim Rantala and former Mannhai bandmate Mikko Pietinen, with Peter Salonen rounding out the quartet on guitar. Laine takes on occasional vocal duties here alongside bass, but while Beyond The Aeons isn’t entirely a ‘different vocalist on each song’ affair, there are multiple guest voices appearing on the album. Unsurprisingly, considering he’s featured on both the Silver Lake and Bjørkø debuts, Amorphis vocalist Tomi Joutsen pops up here as well on “Human Amoral”, and Koivusaari's growls also make an appearance on “Coast Of The Drowned Sailors”. The most frequent vocalist on Beyond The Aeons, however, is Laine’s one-time Barren Earth collaborator Mikko Kotamäki (probably better known for fronting Swallow The Sun), who appears on 3 tracks and also handles live duties. Other featured vocalists include current Barren Earth, Hamferð and Iotunn singer Jón Aldará, Feastem’s Petri Eskelinen and fellow ex-Mannhai comrade Jani Muurinen.

It's an impressive array of names, but really the thing that makes Beyond The Aeons so fascinating is its style. Shades of Amorphis were evident in Bjørkø and especially Silver Lake, but Octoploid not only bears a greater resemblance than either, but it harks back to a very specific era in that band’s history. It’s perhaps apt that Rantala is present here, as it is the sole album released during his tenure with the group, Elegy, that comes inexorably to mind at times while listening to Beyond The Aeons. It’s most obvious on “Coast Of The Drowned Sailors” (and I’m sure Koivusaari’s signature sickening growls contribute to that), as the guitar leads, riffs, folk twangs and slightly murky production practically scream “Against Widows” in a way that I can’t think any song released this side of the millennium has accomplished.

The album isn’t rooted solely in the 90s; the blend of folk, prog and melodeath that Amorphis have made their own has evolved between Elegy and their more recent albums, and there are times when Silent Waters or Eclipse feel like more relevant points of comparison, but across the whole album, Elegy feels like the most pertinent reference point, and honestly, it’s thrilling to hear that sound resurrected with such style. From the off, Octoploid find a sweet balance between the classic guitar leads (Salonen really nails Holopainen’s style), folkish charms, proggy flourishes and brutish extremities, all of which come through strongly on opener “The Dawns In Nothingness”. Joutsen’s featured song, “Human Amoral” does a good job of straddling the decades; the opening folkish riff has a definite Elegy feel to it, and the peaks of its extremity arguably travel even further back in time, but its cleaner melodic second half belongs to the more recent history of Amorphis.

Now, I am aware of how much namedropping I am doing during the course of this review, and one could argue that such similarity can compromise the ability of an album to shine (I’ve seen some other reviews rely less heavily on comparisons to Amorphis, but I have to assume they were written by reviewers less acquainted with that band’s history). Still, I know there are a lot of people who lose interest in Amorphis past their first 3 records, so I have to assume that there’s a waiting fanbase for an album that basically serves as a spiritual successor to Elegy, particularly one that’s well-written, and Beyond The Aeons certainly is. I’d argue it peaks across those first 3 songs, but they're not followed by a substantial decline. The relatively intense “Shattered Wings” is carried by a solid central guitar lead motif, while “The Hallowed Flame” incorporates the folk and prog elements impressively well.

There are a few minor missteps across the album’s runtime, however. Considering that it’s arguably the album’s standout song, I do find that the clean vocal segment by (presumably) Muurinen on “Coast Of The Drowned Sailors” falls a tad flat, and despite how accomplished Aldará is, I could do without the clean chorus on “A Dusk Of Vex” too. I also wouldn’t particularly miss “Concealed Serenity” as a whole if it was cut from the tracklist. However, even these latter two songs have their moments of merit; in particular, “A Dusk Of Vex” comes alive in the final minute or so with a lush instrumental closing sequence.

Beyond The Aeons doesn’t have consistency or quite the same peaks to be Elegy 2.0, but while there’s definitely still some room for improvement, the fact that the album’s managed to get this close to inheriting the legacy of that album is really remarkable and exciting. Laine may be a bit of an unsung hero amongst the Amorphis line-up, but based on this first album, Octoploid is the most promising of the recent projects to spin off from the Finnish giant.