Finland’s AMORPHIS have signed a deal with Nuclear Blast Records who were their label early on in their career. Guitarist Esa Holopainen issued the following comments regarding the band’s signing:

“Last year was quite difficult for AMORPHIS. We went through (another) line-up change after we decided that it’s better if Mr. [Pasi] Koskinen leaves the band. Finding a new vocalist was tough. It was more difficult than we actually would have imagined. We received about 150 demos from people all around–some of them were really good, some not. At that time we noticed that it’s an impossible mission to find a singer whose sound would match AMORPHIS and who would give 100% to the band. We actually thought about doing an instrumental album when one of Mr. [Tomi] Koivusaari’s friends told us about their singer Tomi [Joutsen], who is really talented. We listened to his demo and his sound was exactly what we were looking for. Koivusaari called him up and he was really interested trying to rehearse with AMORPHIS. The day he came over, we went through “Against Widows,” “Alone,” and few other songs including “Sign From The North Side,” which is from our debut album, and it was proven that Tomi Joutsen is the next AMORPHIS singer.

“Besides changing vocalists, we changed management and sat down think about how to continue from here. We already composed songs for the forthcoming album and started to work with vocals. We thought about different options and all agreed that it’s better if we stuck with basics and go back to where we once started. We have been really good friends with Nuclear Blast dudes for over ten years. I remember talking with [founder] Markus [Staiger] at the Summer Breeze Festival over a year ago, and he told us we should come back to Nuke Blast. During the past years, we have become really cynical with labels because 95% of all talk is bullshit and they give you promises that they can’t keep. We knew that we could always call up the Nuke guys with whatever matter and we knew how they work. This is the most important thing - that these guys are true fans of the music they put out. So, we are now officially signed back to Nuclear Blast and I have to say that it feels really good.

“For the people who wonder how AMORPHIS sounds today, it’s EPIC, HEAVY and MELODIC with a mixture of GROWLING VOCALS!!!”