ELUVEITIE - Slania (2008)

I wasn’t so thrilled with my writeup of Spirit, but perhaps it was appropriate for something I was still trying to get a handle on and understand.  I return with my second review of the band returning with their second record, and this time hopefully I can spend less time listing individual elements of songs and more conveying how it makes me feel to listen to them.  We shall see.

 

Now the band has eight members rather than nine, and this is the first record to feature then eighteen-year-old Anna Murphy on hurdy-gurdy and backing vocals.  So now we have the pieces in place for the eventual Cellar Darling split.  Whoever is operating the instruments, though, I think Eluveitie is absolutely and thoroughly Chigrel’s band at this point.  I imagined we’d see Merlin and Ivo (and Anna, I guess) getting progressively more writing credits as we stepped through the discography.  Apparently not, though, or at least not yet.  Chigrel Glanzmann is more or less the sole credited writer again here, with the only co-writing credit (from a band member) coming from Sevan Kirder.  Maybe I should have paid more attention to the Kirders (Sevan and Rafi, his brother, the bassist), as in the earliest concert video available on YouTube Sevan is standing right next to Chigrel and demanding attention as a whirling shirtless dervish of flute/etc playing.  And then both Kirder brothers left the band shortly after Slania’s release.  Neither the first nor the last lineup change, and I’m doing my best just to keep track of the main players, here.

 

Track One:  “Samon”

This time instead of starting with water, we’re starting with crackling fire or something.  Sure, whatever.  It’s an intro track, so yeah, chanting.  This leans into the guitars right from the jump, so we’re clearly in folk-metal territory.  That’s that.  It’s less than two minutes long.  I repeat, it’s an intro track.

 

Track Two:  “Primordial Breath”

Right away one hears two things that I thought would define Slania.  One is that it sounds like hurdy-gurdy (or is it bagpipes?  It could totally be bagpipes) really being front and center, above the other folk instruments.  This could have actually been a way to give the band a signature sound, to elevate one of the musicians to the role of shaping the majority of tracks.  They do not do this on the rest of the record.  The other is that they realized that the vocals should come front and center.  The track uses the female-led chanting as the intro and outro, but then turns it over to Chigrel, barking and growling verses about a primordial state of being, and then half-singing a catchy prechorus, and then growling along with more male chants for a non-English chorus; that latter combination sounds great.  The song is a bit of a grower in that it took a few listens to realize that it’s an absolute earworm.  For my purposes Chigrel is actually a pretty great vocalist for this style of music, and he nails it on “Primordial Breath” (and many others).

 

This is the one that Sevan co-wrote, and I guess they thought highly enough of it to make it the first “regular” song on the record.

 

One demerit: I didn’t notice the drums much on this record, but here Merlin stands out in kind of a bad way.  Some of the time he’s doing a rapid-fire drum that works as a blast beat accompaniment, but here and there he lapses into a cacophony of St. Anger style noise that doesn’t seem musical.

 

Track Three:  “Inis Mona”

The moment that riff starts, my blood starts pumping.  This just rules.  Part of this is quality scavenging, I suppose.  I really should mention here that even though most, including the band, don’t really emphasize it, it’s kind of an open secret that the majority of Eluveitie tracks aren’t pure originals.  Rather, a lot of the melodies are traditional folk songs reworked into something else.  Apparently their whole career is like that, but it’s especially marked on Slania.  “Inis Mona” seems to be the most famous example of that behavior, taking its main melody, at least according to multiple random Internet sources, from a (comparatively) high-profile Cornish sailing tune, “Tri Marolod.”  Whatever the formula and the history, the composition definitely works.  The melody is catchy and haunting, Chigrel and the occasional pulsating guitar riffs sound great playing off it, and the chorus is a killer (from the “I close my eyes…” parts).  I feel like I love every component of this song.  The extended bit of riffage before dropping into a more standard-for-the-band woodwind solo, and the solo itself?  Nice.  The few bars of quiet strummed guitar before dropping into the glorious final chorus?  Bliss.  Although Spirit certainly had its moments, I am personally an unsophisticated listener looking for soaring choruses that exude ancient strength backed by lively music that comes from another world.  To that end, “Inis Mona” is the first track that sucks me in the to the extent that the best of Origins does.  I understand that it was at least one point their signature song and a live staple, and it’s impossible not to see why.  This band is producing some brilliant music that’s not like anything else.

 

Track Four:  “Gray Sublime Archon”

I generally listen to this record straight through, and my momentum never fails to slack here.  I think it’s just having three fast/heavy songs in a row, the third of which is always going to be a letdown coming after “Inis Mona.”  I pondered whether “Gray Sublime Archon” might hit harder placed earlier or later.  But, hey, look, “Primordial Breath” feels so right as the opener, and it leads into “Inis Mona” so well that I think the order is just right for those two.  Meanwhile, GSA is, well, an album track.  It has a dancing woodwind riff like many others, a pretty good guitar riff like many others, some lyrics that’re hard to understand… it’s fine.  Sounds like Eluveitie.

Track Five:  “Anagantios”

As on the last record, after three rockers we get our respite interlude track, a violin-forward mostly-instrumental with the few vocals present being wordless.  And this is why I listen to metal and not instrumental folk!  “Anagantios” sounds nice enough, but it has basically two phrases that repeat over and over.  3:25 is suffocatingly long for a song that, in the context of the record, feels like an interlude and nothing more. 

 

Track Six:  “Bloodstained Ground”

Some horses and sounds lead us into what’s clearly going to be a song about conquest, although I can’t tell if it’s from the perspective of the Archon from the last song resisting it, or a modern-day person hearing the voices of the ancient defenders.  Although we do eventually get some accordions and winds over the chorus and solo, “Bloodstained Ground” stands out as the most metal song on the record.  The crunchy guitars, Merlin’s drums, and Chigrel doing an extended breathless phrase are the focus for much of it, so much so that the lulls and the spoken word interludes actively detract.  “Bloodstained Ground” is here to violate you in every orifice you have and then maybe feel guilty about it afterward, and I’m here for it.

 

Track Seven:  “The Somber Lay”

Natural extension of the last song; they really seem like they were meant to go together.  Lyrically, though, it seems like this is the retreat and seed-planting for rebirth, after the previous attempt to lash out against those who threaten the old ways.  “The Somber Lay” has a great chorus and I wish that it could somehow be melded with the verses of “Bloodstained Ground.”  But it wouldn’t fit there.  It’s too, well, somber.  It’s its own thing.

 

Track Eight:  “Slanias Song”

No apostrophe in the title, so although I like to imagine that the girl from the tombstone that supposedly inspired the name of the record is speaking out, my suspicion is that this is actually supposed to be a more universal ode to a homeland from the perspective of a populace.  Anyway!  “Slanias Song” is the other track that really foregrounds the hurdy gurdy and/or bagpipes like I thought we’d so more of, and serves as the record’s main female-vocals song.  Even though none of it is English, I love the way the main phrase sounds – Anna, I assume – and then the way the song hands off the percussive parts to Chigrel, like a duet.  

 

Here I’d compare to track eight from the last record.  “Sirxata” fundamentally sounded like an interlude, an outlier.  On this song, by contrast, Anna’s part is meticulously composed with a real melody line and the band is leaning into its rocking out.  And it fits into whatever loose concept the record has, with the aforementioned sense of the dead speaking.  “Slanias Song” is a key part of Slania, and Slania would not be the same without it.  More than that, this one song alone opens a new frontier for Eluveitie, creating a song that sounds distinctly like them while adding a new wrinkle.  Dare I say that despite the mixed sexes of the band from day one, that they’d always previously made very masculine music, whereas “Slanias Song” for the first time infuses the core Eluveitie sound with some feminine energy?  I think what I’m going for is that I really like both the track itself and what it does for the album.

 

Track Nine:  “Giamonios”

We kind of need an interlude again after another batch of intense tracks.  This time we do it right – haunting flute part, thing is over in a minute and a half.  That’s all I ask for.

 

Track Ten:  “Tarvos”

I couldn’t remember anything about this one until playing it just now.  I mean, it does sound good, and once I started playing it, I was into it.  I like Chigrel’s call and response vocals with himself – and can I again mention the strong vocal performance across the whole record? - and the sense of momentum that comes from the push and pull between the harsh vocals and the harsh flute during the chorus.  The bridge is a bit dull.  Of all of the quality Eluveitie songs, this is one of them.

 

Track Eleven:  “Calling The Rain”

On the other hand, I can instantly call at least the title lyric of “Calling The Rain” to mind.  Maybe it’s the title, but it immediately gave the feeling of being caught up in a maelstrom and not feeling too bad about it.  This track has a legit all-timer of a death-metal chorus and wisely waits until it’s been properly built up before giving us the chorus.  “I will not forget where I arose from.”  Indeed. 

 

Track Twelve:  “Elembivos”

Nearly an instrumental, although it seems as though the (barely comprehensible) chanted lyrics do make a quick statement that sort of completes the album’s thematic cycle – one last exhale of that primordial breath?  No matter.  Oddly “Elembivos” is the longest track on the record, and even more oddly, I like it a lot.  Both the central instrumental tune and the chanted melody are pretty catchy, and then the song tosses its tune around to give us both one of Slania’s few guitar solos, and then one of its few sections in which Meri’s violin really shines, and then it just keeps going, feeling like it’s reaching upwards and trying to see how long it can keep being awesome before the inevitable fadeout. 

 

Additional comments

I first was exposed to Eluveitie’s metal side under the label “melodic death metal” so I’ve stuck with that, but I’ve seen elsewhere on the Interwebs it being called “black metal” too.  This has led me to appreciate how fine a line there is between the metal sub-genres, and admit to that the only way I even know how to tell the two above apart is the vocals.  Focusing on the growls, it still sounds more death than black to me, even if Chigrel throws in enough phlegmy snarls here and there that I’d also accept “blackened death.” 

 

Slania really feels like a tour de force, doesn’t it?  I acknowledge that it’s clear that there’s a formula here, but it’s a really good formula, it’s pretty unique in the music world, and it’s just executed so well.  The only thing missing to make this peak Eluveitie would be an epic like “The Endless Knot.”  Otherwise, this seems to be about as fully realized as it gets.  Where do you go after making a record like this?  Do you keep beating the same drum with slight variations to diminishing returns?  Which aspect of your sound do you lean into hardest, and where do you go to incorporate new elements?

 

Or you could do something really weird and make an acoustic folk record where the vocals are all Gaulish and all sung by your backup singer, under the same band name, but, well that’d be a departure…

 

- Favorite track:  "Inis Mona"

- Runner up:  "Slanias Song”

- Least favorite track:  "Antagantios”

- Rating:  4.5/5

 

Definitive running list of records by Eluveitie that I have listened to so far, in order of what I have decided is unambiguously their quality

1)  Slania

2)  Spirit

 

On to some odds and ends from this band, whenever I get around to it!  And that will be followed in (probably not short) order by Evocation I, whenever I get around to that!