It's been over a decade since the beginning of the reinvention of the cello by Finish quartet (including drummer) Apocalyptica and now comes a collection conjured up by the broad spectrum of Apocalyptica's extensive discography in the form of, 'Amplified: A Decade Of Reinventing The Cello', this 'best of' covers much ground, original compositions and cover songs.
Now Lets start off with Disc 1 of this album - this one is packed full of instrumental classical chaos, with tracks such as, Slayer's 'Angel Of Death' setting off the spark for the album, following onto some more great covers like Metallica's 'Enter Sandman', 'One', 'Master Of Puppets' and 'Nothing Else Matters', Savatage's 'Hall Of The Mountain King' and Sepultura's 'Refuse/Resist'. Now onto those ripping original tracks like, 'Somewhere Around Nothing', 'Deathzone', 'Harmageddon', the list just goes on! such a beautiful collection of heavy and classical cello numbers right here, even the first Disc is worthy of buying alone, but it cannot be complete without Disc 2, containing tracks all with vocals ranging from vocalists around the globe such as Max Cavalera, Mattias Sayer, Ville Valo, Lauri Ylonen, Sandra Nasic, Manu, Linda Sunblad, Nina Hagen and Matt Tuck.
Disc 2 brings quite a different side to the Apocalyptica collection, not straying at all from their insturmental compositions, but adding a lot of depth to the sound by introducing so many different vocalists from all spectrums of music and all around the globe, which I think makes these songs stand out from the rest by trying different things, it's reasons like this that I personally love this band, the fact they are so versatile in the delivery of their compositions and not straying to go beyond barriers, fans of Apocalyptica old and new, I think would find this to be quite a great collaboration of their music and covers their whole 'classical metal' career without forgetting to add their early compositions that helped shaped what their music is today. If you don't know who Apocalyptica are, all I can say is, if you're a fan of classical music and/or metal then this one is definitely a keeper. A perfect testament to the innovators of classical metal.
Standout tracks: Angel Of Death, One, Somewhere Around Nothing, Bittersweet, Life Burns!, Path Vol.2.
Disc 1.
1. Angel Of Death
2. Betrayal
3. Cohkka
4. Deathzone
5. Enter Sandman
6. Farewell
7. Hall Of The Mountain King
8. Harmageddon
9. Heat
10. Kaamos
11. Master Of Puppets
12. Nothing Else Matters
13. One
14. Refuse/Resist
15. Somewhere Around Nothing
Disc 2.
1. Bittersweet (featuring Ville Valo & Lauri Ylonen)
2. En Vie (featuring Manu)
3. Faraway Vol.2 (featuring Linda Sunblad)
4. Hope Vol.2 (featuring Mattias Sayer)
5. Life Burns! (featuring Lauri Ylonen)
6. Path Vol.2 (featuring Sandra Nasic)
7. Repressed (featuring Max Cavalera & Matt Tuck)
8. Seemann (featuring Nina Hagen)
