Ben and Silver are featured in the latest issue of Riffi Magazine, a Finnish music mag focused on gear. The guys go through their live gear in detail and talk about playing in general. So check out Riffi 7/2009 for geeky guitar talk!

Hi folks,

We made it back alive! The falling down the stairs, the near-broken ribs, the "t-shirt incident", the breaking into our own van, the 16 000 km of driving in one month. Still, we'd get back on the road tomorrow if that was an option! We wanna thank Amorphis for being the great headliners that they were, and for taking us with them in the first place. Thanks to Before the Dawn for being the best possible co-support act, things have never run smoother. The crew, especially our designated driver Peki and our tour master Joey, you guys rule! Sami-Hannu, the sound engineer, for making us sound good night after night. Tuomas from BTD for stepping up and helping us out in Prague in our time of need. And the thousands of people we had the pleasure to play to this past month: thank you very much for the warm responses, the kind words after the shows and just for showing up in time to catch the first band of the evening! We hope to see you all real soon...

Back home now, we have the rest of the year off. Well, off from playing shows anyhow. The plan is to start working on new songs immediately. A bunch of new ideas have been waiting even before the tour, and new riffs were worked on every day at the backstages across Europe, so we have a lot to go with already. No schedules or deadlines yet whatsoever, but naturally we'll let you know as soon as something comes up.

Cheers,

-Ben & the guys  

The Finnish Metal Awards are here again! It's time to let your voice be heard about what you think is the best Finnish album, band, player, singer and artwork of the year 2009. And just as a reminder, a lil' album called "Show Your Colors" was released this very year... So take a minute to fill your submissions here. They're even giving away CD's and tickets to next february's Finnish Metal Expo for some lucky voters....

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Finnish Metal Awards on täällä jälleen! On aika äänestää vuoden kovinta kotimaista levyä, bändiä, soittajaa, laulajaa sekä kansitaidetta. Ja pikku muistutuksena, muuan "Show Your Colors" -niminen lätty julkaistiin tänä vuonna... Eli käy ilmoittamassa omat ehdokkisi tänne ja olet mukana mm. CD-palkintojen sekä FME-lippujen arvonnassa.

Yeah! The days off did wonders and we were able to pull the Budapest show with flying colors. Same thing tonight at Bucharest, which was killer. Ari is A ok and the tour will continue as planned from now.

Just to make sure we don't have any spare time on tour, we're writing a second tour blog (in Finnish) for Radio Rock's website. We'll try to at least have some different pics on there to keep things interesting. Check out the blog here.

And be sure to keep following the main blog (updated more frequently) at this location.

We are sorry to announce that we will not be playing in Cracow two days from now, on tuesday the 27th. Yesterday our singer Ari slipped in a stairway and hurt his chest badly, among other places. Today, during our soundcheck in Prague, the pain got unbearable and he was taken to see a doctor. This was just an hour before our showtime, meaning he wouldn't be able to do tonight's show. Since we were already there, our gear all set up, we decided to play a short instrumental set without Ari. Tuomas from Before the Dawn stepped up and sang Pusher with us, which he learned just 30 minutes before the gig! A huge thank you to Tuomas for helping us out, and also to the amazing crowd, who were more than understanding and supportive of our situation. You guys rule! We can't wait to get back and play you a proper show.

We've decided, given the doctor's advice, to let Ari rest for the next two days. Unfortunately this means that the Cracow gig is a no-go. We hate cancelling shows more than anything, but this is absolutely nessessary to make sure he won't get worse and that we won't have to cancel the rest of the tour completely. We were really looking forward to the Cracow show, as we've never played in Poland before. We hope you understand and enjoy Before the Dawn's Amorphis' great gigs.

If all goes well and Ari gets better fast, we'll be joining the tour again in Budapest on wednesday the 28th. We'll keep you posted.     

After yestedays sold out show in Hannover, Germany, we had a lot of people come over and compliment us on a great gig, but also asking about Ari's stage shirt. Ari was wearing a Burzum t-shirt (a band he's not even into, he bought it as a "kvlt" joke while in Norway), which, we learned yesterday, is regarded as a very "pro-nazi" band in Germany. We want to make it clear that neither Ari, nor anyone else in Amoral, have ANY sympathy for these kind of ideologies, and want nothing to do with them. We apologise for any misunderstandings.   

Roskilde Festival, one of Europe's biggest summer events, wants to hear your requests for next year's lineup! So log in here, list the top five bands you'd like to see playing there, and make sure Amoral is on top of your list!

Young Guitar Magazine, the leading guitar mag in Japan, conducted an interview with Ben, which is featured in the magazine's latest issue (10/09). Check it our if you have a chance!

You can keep track of our whereabouts, doings and mischief on the road by following our tour blog. We'll be updating it with texts and pics as often as we can, so stay tuned!