Amanita Virosa – Original Plague

Band: Amanita Virosa
Title: Original Plague
Label: Inverse Records
Release date: 23 August 2019
Country: Finland
Format reviewed: High-quality Digital Recording

To pick a band named after a poisonous fungus is always a good start to the week!

In 2015 the Finnish band AMANITA VIROSA released their first full-length album and now, four years later, the second full-length album “Original Plague” will finally see the light of day on the coming 23rd of August.

What the first full-length album Asystole brought with it had a taste of hospital metal of sort, the photos of the members from back than, speak as loudly as the music they produced, however this time I do believe they have done better.

The hospital theme seems to have been switched out for what appears to be a plague doctor look; masks, robes, and everything. Suitable, given the name of the record. But does the music suit the new appearance?

The intro track “Prelude” suited the new appearance in my own opinion quite well and I was fascinated from the very beginning. A somewhat typical piano with some guttural whispers in the background started to build up my excitement and the double bass beat surely didn’t do any harm, and as the follow up of “I Walk Away” came around I knew this was a typical Finnish symphonic death. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that at all.

The Old Man´s Child vibes that I got from “My Enemy” was strong. The almost happy sound of the choruses along with the evil sided verses were grand although I felt as if the guy on the piano could perhaps take it down a notch. If the piano was meant to be a representative of the outraging plague of the old times that the doctors had to fight, than I suppose kudos is in order.

The track “Open Your Mouth” struck me as somewhat different from what I had heard at that point. The opening riff along with slower grind beat wasn’t exactly the different part, but the groove-melodic-death-metal along with choruses that sounded ready for the Eurovision Song Contest was an interesting blend of things that are not so common in other genres or in Finland in general. And who could forget the ever present piano plague.

“This Night” marched on with evil in its roots and I realized the vocals had been dead on for the entire album. He seems to have some sort of a presence and I couldn’t help but think that there was no way this band could be from any other country but Finland.

All guns were blazing during the closing track of “Longing”, my only downside thought was that by now the openings of a lot of the tracks had been somewhat the same, which makes me think that maybe the album could have been shorter. The music is very well played, as are the songs quite well written. They know how to work with the catchy choruses and they have that Finnish vein going that most metal heads have gotten to know by now. The metal is strong in Finland. As if they really needed any more evidence of that fact. 8/10 Julia

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8/10 To Greatness and Glory!
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