Korn‘s Jonathan Davis was so excited by ORGY that he created his own record label …
5
A niche within a niche
Seems a bit of a misnomer dubbing this album Hard Noise, considering it’s pitter-patter soft compared to the Swiss group’s usual melodic death metal fare. Evocation II – Pantheon is the second part of Eluveitie’s unplugged series. It’s a companion to Evocation I – The Arcane Dominion released in 2009. Yeah, that’s a long time between ales.
What’s striking about this release is it’s the first with a nearly all new line-up. Anna Murphy (vocals, hurdy-gurdy), Merlin Sutter (drums) and Ivo Henzi (guitars and bass) split last year to form Cellar Darling, which by all accounts is Eluveitie-lite anyway. So what’s Eluveitie 2.0 got for us?
This niche within a niche will struggle to find an audience outside of weird kilt-wearing dudes who drink mead out of fake bullhorns on weekends.
Unless you’re listening extra hard, not much has changed. If you like your tin-whistling, acoustic-plucking, and bearskin drumming upbeat and jaunty, listen to Epona. If you want the same thing dark and brooding, skip ahead to Catvrix. If you can picture yourself on a highland bluff, fog swirling around you as you pace the virgin soil of Celtic Gallia, then Nantosvelta is your jam.
Trilled flutes and burbling hurdy-gurdy anchors each track. But such is Celtic folk music. Synths and HM-2 pedals were about 2,038 years from hitting the nearest Forum Artem. Repetition settles at the bottom of the entire record like coffee grinds in your morning mug o’ joe. Pounding rhythms in tracks like Ogmios have a “heaviness” to them, sure. Metalheads waiting for a big swing on a distorted guitar are left wanting. Also, of 18 tracks, only half have a run-time of three or more minutes. Hmm.
I really don’t want to say “you’ll love it if you already like this stuff,” but it’s true. This niche within a niche will struggle to find an audience outside of weird kilt-wearing dudes who drink mead out of fake bullhorns on weekends.
STANDOUT TRACKS: Epona, Ogmios, Nantosvelta
STICK THIS NEXT TO: Acoustic Equilibrium, Blind Guardian’s folky stuff, Korpiklaani (in the dark)
