Over the past few years, Eluveitie has become one of the most successful bands in the folk metal genre with their unique combination of Celtic folk music and Gothenburg-style melodic death metal. After becoming quite popular in the European metal scene, the Switzerland-based group is starting to break out in America, having already done two headlining tours in the U.S.
That said, their last album, the 2010 release “Everything Remains (As It Never Was),” put their staying power in question. Many of the Gothenburg-style riffs felt recycled and familiar and while I enjoyed the album, certain songs made me think that the band might have slowly been running out of ideas. Luckily, with their new release “Helvetios,” Eluveitie has proven me wrong, at least for the most part.
The album starts with a somber track featuring a spoken word section from a narrator, which introduces the concept of the album. While Eluveitie has revisited a fair number of themes over their career, this is their first concept album, dealing with the initial wars between the Romans and the Gauls.
This leads into the first track, “Helvetios,” a proud and epic piece introducing the listeners to the Gallic people and getting the album’s energy up after a relatively slow opener. This song, along with others, showcases how stunningly well-executed the Celtic melodies are in Eluveitie’s songs.
The instrumentals are great and the flutes and violins carry terrific emotion. The first track also establishes that the band is capable of going in different directions with their riffs, with many seeming almost reminiscent of metalcore bands like Killswitch Engage. While I’m generally very quick to call out metalcore as being watered-down pop metal, the core-ish riffs on this album work surprisingly well; they show that guitarists Ivo Henzi and Simeon Koch can in fact do more than recycle the same “At the Gates” style riffs over and over again.
The next song, “Luxtos,” starts a precedent for this album of having sung choruses, which works extremely well from both an aesthetic and musical standpoint. It really gives the powerful feel of the whole Gallic army singing these songs about fighting off the Romans.
Anna Murphy (female vocalist and hurdy-gurdy player) is put to great use on this album, providing lead vocals on the rather gothic metal track “A Rose for Epona” and supporting vocals on many of the other tracks. The band also seems to have recognized that Murphy has an awesome scream; she does it on two songs on this album (“Meet The Enemy” and “The Siege”) while in the past she’s only screamed in one song. This is a fantastic decision on Eluveitie’s part and I hope to hear her vocals used to such effect on future releases from the group.
Despite how good this album is, there are a few minor weak points to consider. A few of the tracks (“Uxellodunon,” notably) feel like needless retreads of old musical ground. It’s encouraging to see that this isn’t true for the majority of the album, but it would be nice if they avoided it more thoroughly in later releases.
Overall, this is probably the best album Eluveitie has done since 2008’s “Slania” and definitely a step in the right direction for the band. With songs like “Havoc,” “A Rose for Epona,” “The Siege” and “Meet the Enemy,” they’ve proven that they’re fully capable of adapting and evolving to avoid musical stagnation.
Four out of Five Stars
That said, their last album, the 2010 release “Everything Remains (As It Never Was),” put their staying power in question. Many of the Gothenburg-style riffs felt recycled and familiar and while I enjoyed the album, certain songs made me think that the band might have slowly been running out of ideas. Luckily, with their new release “Helvetios,” Eluveitie has proven me wrong, at least for the most part.
The album starts with a somber track featuring a spoken word section from a narrator, which introduces the concept of the album. While Eluveitie has revisited a fair number of themes over their career, this is their first concept album, dealing with the initial wars between the Romans and the Gauls.
This leads into the first track, “Helvetios,” a proud and epic piece introducing the listeners to the Gallic people and getting the album’s energy up after a relatively slow opener. This song, along with others, showcases how stunningly well-executed the Celtic melodies are in Eluveitie’s songs.
The instrumentals are great and the flutes and violins carry terrific emotion. The first track also establishes that the band is capable of going in different directions with their riffs, with many seeming almost reminiscent of metalcore bands like Killswitch Engage. While I’m generally very quick to call out metalcore as being watered-down pop metal, the core-ish riffs on this album work surprisingly well; they show that guitarists Ivo Henzi and Simeon Koch can in fact do more than recycle the same “At the Gates” style riffs over and over again.
The next song, “Luxtos,” starts a precedent for this album of having sung choruses, which works extremely well from both an aesthetic and musical standpoint. It really gives the powerful feel of the whole Gallic army singing these songs about fighting off the Romans.
Anna Murphy (female vocalist and hurdy-gurdy player) is put to great use on this album, providing lead vocals on the rather gothic metal track “A Rose for Epona” and supporting vocals on many of the other tracks. The band also seems to have recognized that Murphy has an awesome scream; she does it on two songs on this album (“Meet The Enemy” and “The Siege”) while in the past she’s only screamed in one song. This is a fantastic decision on Eluveitie’s part and I hope to hear her vocals used to such effect on future releases from the group.
Despite how good this album is, there are a few minor weak points to consider. A few of the tracks (“Uxellodunon,” notably) feel like needless retreads of old musical ground. It’s encouraging to see that this isn’t true for the majority of the album, but it would be nice if they avoided it more thoroughly in later releases.
Overall, this is probably the best album Eluveitie has done since 2008’s “Slania” and definitely a step in the right direction for the band. With songs like “Havoc,” “A Rose for Epona,” “The Siege” and “Meet the Enemy,” they’ve proven that they’re fully capable of adapting and evolving to avoid musical stagnation.
Four out of Five Stars
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