Review by Andy Valentine
For maybe the last two years or so, Eluveitie has been one of my favorite bands on the planet. The album that turned me, Slania (2008) was unlike anything I’d heard before it. Fact is, Eluveitie records have found a spot on each of my end-of-year Top 10 lists for both 2008 and 2009. And it looks like they’ve already chiseled their name in my nascent Best-of-2010 list. It’s only February and I already know Everything Remains (As it Never Was) is going to be one of the best records of the year.
Bands like Eluveitie remind me why I listen to music in the first place. Why I keep on paying all this money to go to show after show. Why I buy this CD or that without hearing note one from whatever band. It’s not because I want to be pandered to or condescended to by the music. It’s because I want to hear something new. I want to hear shit I haven’t heard before.
I want to be fucking challenged.
Yes, I realize that metal is necessarily bound by its own self defined genre-constraints. And fuckin aye, I like a good chugga chugga as much as the next guy. But there’s something to be said about the anticipation behind the unexpected. Yeah alright, Slayer is awesome, but when was the last time Slayer knocked you on your ass? When was the last time a band really made you say “wow?”
Take the groove breakdowns in “Essence of Ashes” for example. This is track 5 on Everything Remains. So there’s this In Flames-esque groove that kicks in two-thirds of the way through the song. The kind of riff that usually leads into some slutty solo. Y’know, standard stuff. A groove breakdown leading to solo-time. And it does the same thing here. But it’s not a guitar solo. It’s a goddamn slutty flute solo harmonized against a hurdy gurdy in the background. I motherfucking hurdy gurdy!
This is the kind of shit I’m talking about. Eluveitie brings tunes like you ain’t never heard before, ‘cept maybe on another Eluveitie record. But even then, you gotta give credit where credit’s due.
This isn’t to say that Eluveitie is the “first” folk/metal band in the world – I guess that was probably Skyclad or something. What Eluveitie is, is they are a band that’s been able to incorporate the folky stuff and not come off as downright goofy. Like, I’m sure Jethro Tull is great or whatever, but Eluveitie is the first time that I’ve seen a flute used in the context of rock or metal and I didn’t burst out laughing. Eluveitie has effectively negotiated the cheeseball pitfall by being, at its core, a top quality death metal band; the folky stuff isn’t just added on. It’s integral to the way this band operates.
The title track starts the album off like a machinegun, probably heavier and faster than anything the band has ever recorded. It’s a track that proves that violins, flutes, and hurdy gurdies aside, this band can still crush. The clean female vocals harmonized against the death metal growls belted out by Chrigel Glanzmann would make the fucking Beatles proud.
I would tend to think that having eight members in a band like this – with just about as diverse of musical instruments can get – it would be tough to orchestrate, record, and play live. Especially when you consider that each member has their own role to play, including flute solos and/or death metal/clean female vocal harmonies. Eluveitie is more than up to the task – hell they make it all seem effortless. And it’s not just that there’s all these diverse instruments, it’s that there’s real musicianship here. Goddamn, that Meri Tadic tears it up on the fiddle.
This album is designed to be listened to from front to back. Be sure you’ve got about 50 minutes free before you dig into this one. Once you kick it off, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you cut it off before the last note passes your ears.