ESA HOLOPAINEN

Release Year: 2021
Artist Origin: FIN
Style: harmonious progressive atmospheric heavy metal

three decades absolutely loyal to Amorphis gang and vision, one of its founding members and main songwriters goes solo with this nine track debut, enriching predominantly epic and evocative experience with a handful of guest vocal performers, each of them creating a personal relation to Esa's trademark unmistakable progressive character of music that he does not try to alter anyhow just because it is not his main band - consider it as a cute extra to all those great longplays by the leading Finnish band, taken on a less intense and more adventurous ride, where each of Jonas Renkse, Einar Solberg, Anneke van Giersbergen, and Tomi Joutsen efforts set a different vibe to music, while Björn "Speed" Strid feels so well in pure heavy metal etude of Promising Sun