ECLIPSE (NUCLEAR BLAST, 2006)
This is the 6th track on Eclipse, the seventh studio album by Finnish progressive metal band Amorphis.
I just love this band — I’ve been following them ever since their debut studio album, Karelian Isthmus. That said, I’ve got to admit that the few albums prior to Eclipse weren’t that interesting to me, and I almost never listen to them. After the 1999 release Tuonela, I stopped listening to Amorphis for a few years, mainly because they drifted from metal into progressive rock — which, at that point, wasn’t my cup of tea. Well, it still isn’t.
In 2005, they got a new vocalist and (finally!) returned to their metal roots. And I’ve got to say: everything since Eclipse — the first album with the new singer, Tomi Joutsen — has been fantastic. This album has many kick-ass tunes, with Perkele being one of them.
But since the word is also a Finnish swear word and a term for an old god/deity, I’d wanted to draw (and paint) it for a long time. The word is over 3,000 years old, so it’s actually older than Christianity. I used this sketch in my “Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me” coloring book, released in 2024 — and even painted it later that same year at the international graffiti event Meeting of Styles.
PERKELE | pencil & fineliner on paper & spraypaint on a wall | 2023, 2024