There are apparently only about 35,000 people in the Alpine principality of landlocked Liechtenstein. It is only about 61 miles square and is bordered by Switzerland and Austria and it looks like a lovely place to visit. Anyway, tourists review over, what about the music there? Well apparently music is an important part of the culture and they have an annual guitar day over there. They do actually have a metal festival there too called the Wavejam Open Air and last year had bands such as local talent Pussylovers playing but at the end of the day I think it’s fair to say that Elis are the only real group to get any notoriety out of the place.
I have really enjoyed all their three previous albums finding last one ‘Griefshire’ 2006 particularly touching and evocative as it followed the sudden tragic death of former singer Sabine Dünser and must have been a very difficult album to release but a proud legacy of all she had achieved. It must have also been very difficult for someone else to step into the breech as the new singer but the job was undertaken by Sandra Schleret a talented vocalist from bands such as Dreams Of Sanity, Siegfried and Eyes Of Eden. We got a taster in the form of EP ‘Show Me The Way’ which had songs by both vocalists in 2007 but this is the first album with Sandra fully working with the band.
It would be silly to compare the two singers really but it would be fair to say that instrumentally this is the sound of Elis through and through and Sandra sounds excellent on it. Her voice is the first thing you hear powerfully alone before the instrumentation piles in on opener ‘Core Of Life’ and she stamps a loud and proud authority on things straight away. Melody is resplendent and this all flows naturally with nice chunky bass and guitar lines driving the music. There is room for some flamboyant soloing here and a couple of listens is all it will take for this song to completely win you over. ‘Twinkling Shadow’ goes for the throat with a real ‘heavy’ metal intro before beauty and beast interplay between Sandra and growly vocals from Tom Saxer. Tom has a stab at singing rather than growling on ‘Warriors Tale’ and it works quite well in a sinister sort of way but it is always Sandra who is going to enchant vocally here. ‘Des Lebens Traum – Des Traumes Leben’ has some keyboard parts that particularly remind of Samael and some giddy instrumental breaks and solos again weaving around the vocals with a dextrous precision. A real classic rock sound sees ‘I Come Undone’ coming together, the guitarists here are certainly keeping the listener on their toes and as this goes into a slightly Euro cheese ballad it is impossible not to smile like a buffoon and go in search of that lighter.
There are plenty of highlights and a lot of variety on the 12 tracks here; the chorus on ‘Morning Star’ stands out and sends a shiver down the spine but there is a lot to enjoy here and at 48 minutes the album has a perfect running time. If that is not quite enough for you the digipack has 2 extra songs and a bonus DVD performance of their Metal Female Voices performance in 2007, sounds like my voiceover promo could be destined for the bin! Love the artwork too.
http://www.elis.li
http://www.myspace.com/elisofficial
