FAR FROM THE SUN
I don’t often get stumped by patients, but the other day I was at a loss when I tried to diagnose a 28-year old wheezing wetback with zits all over his body and gangrenous balls. Not even a prostate exam could help me figure out his condition. It was kinda like listening to AMORPHIS’ 8th album
Far From The Sun, a disease soup of bad 80s rock, 70s psychedelic jacking, and watery grunge. You end up not knowing what the fuck you have, only wishing someone would saw through your fibia bone so you felt SOMETHING.
I wanted to stuff a handful of cotton swabs in this Medicaid-toting, sombrero-wearing fence jumper’s mouth so he wouldn’t cough on me. Someone should have left him in the oxygen-depleted cargo hold of a tractor trailer, but no, he’s gotta show up at my office on the very day AMORPHIS ends up in my in-box. I swear to god, if I don’t catch Yellow Fever from this mushroom-picking virus, I’ll be lucky— like this half-dead, 6-person mess from Finland was to make it to an eighth album. I rather hear the bleeping of a heart monitor for 7 hours straight while my wife whines an a cappella version of "Wind Beneath My Wings," than listen to vocalist Pasi Koskinen sing about judgement day to what sounds like the instrumentals from BON JOVI’s
Slippery When Wet.
Slaving in service of the sick dregs of society has afforded me the privilege of vacationing pretty much wherever I want in the world. However, after hearing
Far From The Sun, I will never set foot on that musically-deformed Viking-hat-wearing vampire-crawling iceberg called Finland EVER. If this is "Finland’s most creative and acclaimed metal band" as AMORPHIS’ website says, then I hope they do something soon to provoke North Korea into testing its nuclear capabilities on Helsinki. Either that, or come up with some memorable songs without PINK FLOYD-loving guitarists Esa, Tomi, and Niclas (I won’t bother typing the alphabet-vomit that is their last names, lest someone think I came down with Parkinson’s and start calling me "ol’ shaky fingers" in the OR).
On the "Smithereens" track, these urine-drinking hacks blatantly rip off Floyd’s riffs from the album "Meddle", namely the song "Echoes". It’s as clear as the stench of the toe jam I rub on my wife’s toast every morning when she’s not looking. Fine if you’re doing a tribute, or cover, but don’t pass it off as your own work. I hope the lead guitarist needs a blood transfusion one day and someone mixes up the blood types. If any of them ever land in my hospital, I’m going to have a nurse named Bruno catheterize them with a guitar pick as we pipe "Echoes" into the room— the Nordic scumbag wannabes.
If you want to catch them on tour, they should be coming around to a community theater or backwoods pub near you any day now (the Penny Arcade was one of their gigs in ’05). The doc’s got some free vials of 1912 influenza you can throw at them, so don’t forget to drop me line beforehand. When you’re talking about AMORPHIS, a pandemic is a small price to pay.
