Artist: Eluveitie
Title: Everything Remains As It Never Was
Type: Album
Label: Nuclear Blast

Having reviewed them live a couple of times as well as one acoustic album, it’s hard for me to believe this is the first time I’ve reviewed an Eluveitie album proper. Reason being that it was early 2008 when I got their album Slania, although due to some red tape going on with the label at the time it meant I had to buy and by then it was a little too late…and oh well. This album more or less carries on from Slania (ignore the acoustic album done since then, that was different). It begins with the familiarly Celtic sounding intro ‘Otherworld’ which allows one to feel the atmosphere building as it eases us gradually into the music. Taking us into title track ‘Everything Remains As It Never Was’ we are met with a real lively jig that is so characteristic of this band’s oeuvre, and on this and ‘Nil’ especially those Riverdancing melodies slot neatly in the midst of some thrashy, melodic death metal verses. Expect it to come at you thick and fast with scything, relentless guitars and drums that hold nothing back. ‘Thousandfold’ is an especially appealing number that opens with kind of a Gothic crunch and a chorus that plays up their whimsical, folksy charm. The intertwining male/female vocal mix works as well as ever, although it is the vocals of Simeon Koch that really give this its unique edge; her vocals are so clean they shimmer and sparkle, her canorous tones chirping like an early morning starling while on ‘Lugdunon’ there are some atmospheric wailing vocals that sway with the music and give off that exhausted vibe as though ending battle. Some of the melodies are really pleasant and ‘Isara’ especially has the capacity to take you to a serene place within, far away from bright lights and traffic noise where all that can be heard is the rushing of the natural stream. The acoustic sounds here are gentle and pastoral, while ‘(do)minion’ has some clean male vocals that are nice change. I’ve always found these to have a delightful charm about them live being a highly enjoyable band to watch but on record part of the magic gets lost. This is no different either. The rather strange thing is that I can hear a song like ‘Quoth The Raven’ and imagine how this could well blow me away in concert, and yet here – while I certainly wouldn’t call it conventional – it doesn’t quite sit up there as anything particularly outstanding. I guess it’s just that when you really strip down their sound they are essentially a melodeath outfit and, ignoring all of the bells and whistles that really fatten out their sound, there are band around who do the style far better. But then there’s so much else going on as well, and above all they evoke a certain unique kind of atmosphere the ultimately is what gives them their appeal. This is certainly an album that is highly enjoyable, but rather like a McDonalds, it will never quite fill you up. http://www.myspace.com/eluveitie
http://www.eluveitie.ch/

Luci Herbert

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