ARBOR VITAE

Melodic Progressive Metal
Finland

С августа 2007 года у группы новое имя

The Lotus Effect Demo, 2007 

Denis Hautaniemi - Vocals
Pekka Kaakinen - Guitar
Mikko Majanen - Guitar
Juha Ollikainen - Bass
Jari Ketola - Drums
Sundell - Keyboards

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The Plague

 Год: 2006
Стиль: Progressive metal
Страна: Finland

1.Eye For An Eye 05:43
2.The Journey Of Many Ends 04:30
3.The Plague 05:05
4.Paria 03:50

download link/forum

THE REVIEW:

Arbor Vitae comes from Vaasa, Finland and it is a progressive metal outfit which was formed originally already in 1997. In 1999 they already played their first festival gig which was in Nummirock but soon after that the band disbanded because of the army duties and other stuff. Now after five years of silence the band has been reformed with 2 original members, Thomas Sundell (keyboards) and Jari Ketola (drums) and four new ones including Dennis Hautaniemi (vocals), Pekka Kaakinen (guitars), Mikko Majanen (guitars) and Juha Ollikainen (bass). Now in 2006 they headed to the studio and recorded a fine quality 4-song EP titled ´The Plague´.

With ´The Plague´ Arbor Vitae (name comes from Latin and it means the tree of life) represents a style which definitely has a little similarity to Amorphis and Opeth. Vocalist Dennis Hautaniemi mostly sings clean vocals but partly you can hear him shouting a few agressive shouts as well. The atmosphere on the album is very fragile and emotional while it is still having its own heaviness as well. The closest comparement I found is maybe Opeth but Arbor Vitae definitely has a different sound to their swedes cousins. The thing that is nice on this CD is the balance which Arbor Vitae has found between heavy, almost death metallic riffing and atmospheric progressive effects.

Arbor Vitae has definitely done great job while making this effort. The demo has a lot of nice atmospheric guitar hooks which will get stuck into the listener´s head and a lot of nice epic sounds. The production has also been handled professionally and I can´t find anything huge to complain about the sounds. Only thing that I would have done differently is the vocals which I would have done a notch heavier. There is always room for progression but I can definitely recommend Opeth fans to check this one out and have a listen to Arbor Vitae. //http://www.hardcoresounds.net/