AMORPHIS Announces Fall 2023 'Halo' European Tour

Following an extensive co-headline tour with ELUVEITIE in Europe last year, Finnish metal icons AMORPHIS are ready to hit the road again visiting some cities and countries they didn't get to perform in at the end of 2022. Today, the band has announced its "Halo" European tour 2023 alongside with Icelandic metal institution SÓLSTAFIR as special guest and Finnish modern metallers LOST SOCIETY as opener.

AMORPHIS's Esa Holopainen states: "We are happy to announce the second leg of the AMORPHIS 'Halo' European tour which starts this October. This time we cover countries and cities where it was not possible for us to go last year. The tour lineup is absolutely great. We will bring along our Icelandic friends SÓLSTAFIR and our country fellows LOST SOCIETY. Looking forward to see our beloved fans again across EU."

SÓLSTAFIR enthuses: "Since our debut show in Helsinki back in 2004, we have had a great love relationship with Finland, and discovering AMORPHIS a decade before with their great 'Tales From The Thousand Lakes' album and watching them grow over the years, we are super pleased to hit the road with Finland's finest metal act. This tour was written in the stars."

LOST SOCIETY's frontman Samy Elbanna adds: "It's been a long time coming - and now we are finally able to announce that we'll be joining our brothers in AMORPHIS on their huge European tour! We can't wait to visit a lot of places we've never been to before and to bring our massive #IfTheSkyCameDown show to you ALL. Get your tickets and prepare yourselves for LOST SOCIETY."

AMORPHIS "Halo" European tour 2023 dates:

Oct. 26 - CH Zürich - Komplex 457*
Oct. 27 - DE Köln - Carlswerk Victoria
Oct. 28 - DE Geiselwind - Music Hall
Oct. 29 - NL Utrecht - Tivoli
Oct. 31 - AT Wörgl - Komma VZ
Nov. 01 - HR Zagreb - Boogaloo Club
Nov. 02 - MK Skopje - YCC
Nov. 03 - GR Thessaloniki - Principal
Nov. 04 - GR Athens - Fuzz Club
Nov. 05 - BG Sofia - Pirotska 5
Nov. 09 - SK Kosice - Collosseum
Nov. 10 - SK Bratislava - MMC
Nov. 11 - AT Linz - Posthof
Nov. 12 - CZ Zlin - M.O.R Cafè
Nov. 14 - PL Gdansk - B90
Nov. 15 - PL Kraków - Kamienna12
Nov. 16 - DE Dresden - Stromwerk
Nov. 17 - DE Wangels - Metal Hammer Paradise
Nov. 18 - DE Hannover – Capitol

* Without SÓLSTAFIR

Tickets will go on sale on Friday, May 19 at 10 a.m. CET.

AMORPHIS released its fourteenth studio album, "Halo", in February 2022 via Atomic Fire Records.

In the past, mythology and legend took the role of today's pop culture: Stories and a set of values uniting us by giving us a voice and a tapestry on which we can find each other and identify with something. By weaving the tales of Finnish national epos "Kalevala" into their songs and interpreting them in a timeless way, AMORPHIS combine the role of ancient minstrels and luminaries of the modern world, honoring tradition without getting stuck in the past.

The vibrant, lively, and touching beauty that is "Halo" highlights their musical and storytelling mastership on a once again soaring level: It's a progressive, melodic, and quintessentially melancholic heavy metal masterwork plucked from the fickle void of inspiration by original guitarists Esa Holopainen and Tomi Koivusaari, bassist Olli-Pekka Laine, drummer Jan Rechberger, longtime keyboardist Santeri Kallio and vocalist Tomi Joutsen, the band's long-standing lyrical consciousness Pekka Kainulainen and a selected group of world class audio professionals led by renowned Swedish producer Jens Bogren. Considering the band's prolonged journey in the forefront of innovative metal music, it's difficult to grasp how AMORPHIS manages to raise the proverbial bar time and time again, presenting a more than worthy finale to the trilogy begun with 2015's "Under The Red Cloud" followed by 2018's "Queen Of Time".

"It really is a great feeling that we can still produce very decent music as a band," says Holopainen, a founding member of the band. "Perhaps a certain kind of self-criticism and long experience culminate in these latest albums." To the songwriter himself, "Halo" sounds both familiar and different. "It is thoroughly recognizable AMORPHIS from beginning to end but the general atmosphere is a little bit heavier and more progressive and also organic compared to its predecessor," he elaborates.

Tomi Joutsen, the man with vocal cords capable of unleashing colossal, bear-like growls as well as singing soothing, mesmerising lullabies, adds, "To me, 'Halo' sounds a little more stripped down compared to 'Queen Of Time' and 'Under The Red Cloud'. However, don't get me wrong: when a certain song needs to sound big, then it sounds very big." He's right, of course: By stripping down some of the arrangements, the monumental moments become even more monumental.

That's of course also thanks to producing renaissance man Jens Bogren who harvested the thirteen final tracks from a batch of thirty songs AMORPHIS offered him. "Jens is very demanding, but I really like to work with him," says Holopainen. "He takes care of the whole project from start to finish, and he allows the musician to focus on just playing. I may not be able to thank Jens enough. Everything we've done together has been really great, and this co-operation has carried AMORPHIS significantly forward."

However, no AMORPHIS album would be complete without the imaginative and poetic storytelling of renowned lyricist and "Kalevala" expert Pekka Kainulainen. "From day one, Pekka has always been an enthusiastic and prolific lyricist for AMORPHIS," says Joutsen. "It is a slow process of translating archaic Finnish poetry into English and adapting it our progressive rhythms. Fortunately, Pekka does everything on time and with great care." Since 2007's "Silent Waters", Kainulainen has been navigating the mythological waters of his homeland with great skill and respect. For "Halo", he outdid himself once again. "'Halo' is a loose-themed record filled with adventurous tales about the mythical North tens of thousands of years ago," he explains. "The lyrics tell of an ancient time when man wandered to these abandoned boreal frontiers after the ice age. While describing the revival of a seminal culture in a world of new opportunities, I also try to reach the sempiternal forces of the human mind."

Photo credit: Sam Jamsen