ELUVEITIE - Everything Remains (As It Never Was) (2010)

Everything Remains (As It Never Was) sits in a central place in the Eluveitie discography wherein the so-called discourse online seems to be even more sharply divided than it is about everything else.  Either this is a real low point and a clear sign that the band had temporarily or permanently lost the plot, or it's the best thing they ever produced, a pinnacle to which they'll never be able to live up.  As always, my opinion is my own, so here's one man's experience with it.

Track One:  "Otherworld"

Well, it's an intro track.  It has a nice gurdy melody.  It has some spoken-word stuff that straddles the line between cheesy and appropriately foreboding.  "Nothing shall last," indeed.  Obviously, main role is as a lead-in to...

Track Two:  "Everything Remains As It Never Was"

And we're back to the trademark brand of metal/FUCKING FOLK MUSIC.  Some new wrinkles here and there, like the distorted effect on the vocals at one point, and having Anna be a big part of the pre-chorus (whilst Chigrel still dominates the chorus proper, of course, as is his wont).  I believe this is Anna's first time singing in English for the band.  Those are superficial wrinkles.  I'm going to argue that there are a few slightly more significant departures here.  Throwing the title track as track #2, which is usually the setup slot.  You normally put your "Primordial Breath"s here to grease the wheels for a more "important" song to be track #3.  I think they do this for two reasons.  One is that it lets them change up their sound very slightly with the elements above, plus the link to an Evocations-style intro track, while doing something pleasantly aggressive for the die-hards.  We have now claimed all of these slightly new elements as fundamentally part of the Eluveitie sound.  Second is that lyrically the musing about past and present, history as the most consequential battlefield, and so on, well, that is indeed what this record is about.

I could well be trying to read more into ERAIEW than is actually there.  It's a big, bold song, it rocks, and it does what Eluveitie does.

Track Three:  "Thousandfold"

Offsetting the lead-off track, this one sounds... well, it's not poppy in the conventional sense, but it does seem pre-designated as the single, if that makes sense.  Aaaand... a cursory search suggests that it was indeed the first single.  A quick hitter with the a simple but catchy folk melody leading the way to a staccato but catchy vocal melody.  Another strong track in more of the classic Eluveitie mold without even the token attempts to break new ground.  And I've gotta say, I find it merely good, not the all-timer that I think some would call it.  Still, good song.  Perhaps worth noting that "Thousandfold" is the first of three tracks on this record, along with #s 5 and 8, that credits Ivo as a co-writer.  (The rest is mostly all Chigrel as usual; we're not making a habit out of Anna writing half the record.)

Track Four:  "Nil"

I could delve into how dark the specifics get as - if I'm understanding the lyrics right, we're now shifting to the perspective of the Romans who're out to annihilate a civilization rather than just win a war.  But my observations will be limited to superficial things.  It's nice, at this point, to hear the flutes take center stage.  For some reason I just adore the pre-chorus where everything fades out except the woodwinds while everything slows down before the drop.  Saying that, though, does "Nil" have a chorus?  It has easily the biggest sing-along bit of the record up to this point, with the "there is nothing left..." section.  But then the second verse ends and the song just kinda goes somewhere else and doesn't get back to what I'm calling a chorus until the very end.  Is Chigrel is playing with us?

Track Five:  "The Essence Of The Ashes"

Breaking with the previous formula of three metal songs and then some folky interlude, we move right on to another rocker.  Very lively wind intro, but the main thing that jumps out about TEOTA is that it comes so close to being a pure metal song.  Most of the run time is just dominated by Ivo and/or Siméon (with Merlin and the rhythm section supporting) just banging out this harsh stacatto, almost nu-metal, riff, and even the instrumentation on top of it doesn't make it not a guitar song.  Okay, there are some strings, most notably in the solo, but they're blended in with the guitars so seamlessly that it's hard to even tell where one ends and one begins - sublimated to the metal.  The fact that this does actually feature a sung (and catchy as fuck) chorus is almost a bonus.*  Now it's time to fight back!  (Even if we crave not for war, it's just so catchy.)

Track Six:  "Isara"

Sadly those first few songs took a few listens to really impress me the way the previous record did, whereas I feel like I should have recognized right away that Everything Remains is, at his point, firing on all cylinders.  What an opening!  What a 1-2-3-4 punch from the title track (including its intro) through "The Essence Of The Ashes!"  So it should be time for a requisite mellow interlude named after a river, right?  Well, right and wrong.  "Isara" starts off nicely as a gentle flute (or clarinet or whatever) figure over a nice acoustic guitar part, but then it goes off the rails a bit with an ear-piercing burst of volume.   Not what I need from my interlude tracks that're somehow nearly three minutes long while having nothing to them.

Track Seven:  "Kingdom Come Undone"

What the hell is the point of that intro where the song sounds "distant" for ten seconds before starting properly?  Once we get past the intro, KCU is a relentless hard rocker that sounds reasonably good as long as long as it doesn't go nuts with the screeching woodwinds.  Even then it's not actually too bad.  I just think that when listening to the album straight through, this is where my energy starts to flag a little bit and I'm starting to get a headache from the flutes.  It's really not until fourth listen that the song clicked at all, making it either the slowest grower or simply the weakest of the "normal" songs.  I would say that "Kingdom Come Undone" itself is a perfectly good album track, hurt by placement and by the brilliance of some of its neighbors.

Track Eight:  "Quoth The Raven"

Okay, now we're talking.  Fuck yeah.  "Quoth The Raven" certainly stood out way before the fourth listen, and stands out further each time.  Is this the perfect Eluveitie song?  For my purposes, anyway?  Well, is there anything I don't love about it?  Nothing immediately comes to mind.  First of all, it's a breath of fresh air after what was feeling like the weakest part of the record.  Right away you get Anna's best hurdy-gurdy part to date, and I really enjoy pretty much everything the guitars do here, whether it be the simple but propulsive verse riff that fits in perfectly with the folk instruments or the more tremolo-ish riffing leading into the bridge.  Chigrel nails the verses, and then lets Anna make her much-needed return to the mic to take the reigns on the chorus.  The spoken word part isn't perfect, but it's worth it both for the background soundscape (including a quiet version of the chorus) and for giving Anna a chance to just lean into a perfect metal-chick growl on "hear my CRRRRRYYYY!!"  She is so totally in command of this song that it's almost a shame to see her not just running the band full-time.  But this one is not a one-woman show.  I love that it's a band collaboration all the way down, with Chigrel, Ivo, Anna, and, for the last time, Meri, all being credited as writers.

I tried to think of a few things I don't love about "Quoth The Raven."  They seemed too petty to mention.  I don't know how the track was received by Eluveitie fans at the time, but from my own particular fandom, I can't think of a better example from the first four records of a band showcasing everything they do well.  More of this, please.

Track Nine:  "(Do)Minion"

Now I'm recharged and ready for more woodwinds (especially if they're slow and ominious rather than frenetic), downtuned guitars, and growling.  And the following track is here for me.  I think at this point we can declare that Everything Is (As It Never Was) is nearly all killer, and nearly filler free.  Getting back to the composition, I especially like the way the winds counterpoint the main melody here in a way that sort of undercuts the chest-beating bravado.  The song feels badass but also wrong, somehow.  And that's all communicated exquisitely by the music, so I got that sense even before sorting out the lyrics.  (Granted, I was thinking more conqueror's perspective, whereas the fan interpretations on Genius tell me it's actually from the perspective of Gauls who'd make secret deals with Rome for subjugation in the name of peace, whilst trying to convince themselves that they were doing right by their people... makes sense of the screaming that ends things.)

Track Ten:  "Setlon"

If I were a better writer, I'd be able to explain why "Isara" does nothing for me while "Setlon" feels at least like a solid palate-cleansing bridge.  I think it's totally that the ullilean pipe or whatever that wind instrument is is a little lower in the mix here and a couple steps lower, so it's less annoying. 

Track Eleven:  "Sempiternal Embers"

Some tricks never stop entertaining me, and one of them is the way the guitars drop in after a few bars of the hudry-gurdy part.  Eluveitie do this shit all the time, and it keeps working.  They also have written a whole bunch of songs that basically sound like this one, and they're all good.  Chigrel's singing is especially strong here, and my notes about the song just say "pre-chorus and chorus both rule."  Of all the tracks that are growled rather than "sung," SE is probably the one I'll be growling to myself most often.  I love the imagery of the embers still smoldering here, too, coming at this point of the record after the battles per se have been fought.  Just a really good melodeath song.

Track Twelve:  "Lugdunon"

We unexpectedly slow down a bit and let Anna chant us in.  I don't agree with the choice to record Chigrel's early parts in a wind tunnel.  Fortunately, the song settles into a nice groove.  It is a good vocal part, in the end, on the verses and choruses anyway (I'm not so keen on the pre-chorus), especially the parts with the multiple chanting vocalists overlapping.  I admit that "Lugdunon" is one of those that didn't grab me right away and took a few listens to really grow on me, but grow it did indeed.

Track Thirteen:  "The Liminal Passage"

"Lugdonon," which liberally threw around the word "liminal," blends perfectly into our closer, a haunting gurdy-and-strings piece that seems to be building to one last killer climax unti... it abruptly all drops out and reprises the phrase "for everything remains as it never was."  End of record.  Hey!  I was enjoying that!  Quit ending my brilliant songs on brilliant albums before I'm ready!

Stray thoughts:

) Pretty much all of the singing on Everything Remains is in English.  Call me a philistine, but I'd be fine with them saving the Gaulish for Evocations records

) And further call me a philistine, but one element I notice not missing at all is the longer songs.  Spirit had a bit of a proggy edge from which the band has decided moved away by this point.  Everything Remains lives mostly in the 4-5 minute range with relatively straightforward song structures.  I guess when there are this many non-standard elements - the multiple vocalists and different singing styles by each one, the multiple non-metal instruments, and so on - also throwing in a bunch of changing time signatures and multipart songs is maybe even just one step too far.  Also, we remain mercifully free of instrumental wankery; if you want a guitar solo that has any role other than to fit the mood of a song, well, this is not that band.  They've mastered the art of writing a hard hitting melodeath song, and they're staying mostly in that lane here.

) It's hard to stand out amongst all these noises, but the "metal section" of the band shows up.  I feel like Merlin primarily, but the guitarists as well, are driving the songs more consistently than they did on the earlier records.

 

) The Internet, or at least one Reddit thread, tells me that this is around the time in the discography when it starts getting much harder to trace where the melodies originated.  I don't know if Chigrel learned how to compose tunes that sound like traditional folk tunes but are actually originals from the ground up, or if he just kept digging up progressively more obscure melodies to repurpose.

) I should really be above needing to justify my tastes and being beholden to what others say.  But last night I made the mistake of browsing reviews and seeing how disdainful the folks on Angry Metal Guy (for those unfamiliar with the site, these are collectively a rock-solid group of music writers.  Way above most of what you'll find on a website) are of post-Spirit Eluveitie.  And I did start to question myself.  Am I just an ignoramus raving about standard melodic death metal just because I'm not well versed in the work of In Flames or Dark Tranquility or whomever?  Is this lowest common denominator pop music?  The answer, of course, is that I like what I like, and there's a reason that this folk-infused melodeath band speaks to me in a way that your obscure critical darlings don't.  Living life as a music fan has taught me that every artist is too poppy for a bunch of people and unlistenable dissonant noise to a bunch of other people.  Eluveitie sounds really good to me, they've absolutely lived up to what I hoped I'd get from them, and I'm writing this down in an attempt to document just how much I like them.

) One critique that I cannot agree with in the slightest is the notion that Everything Remains is weaker than some of the neighboring records because where this band and others make concept records, here we have just a collection of songs.  What?!  I wonder what record those people are listening to.  Everything Remains has a clear and obvious unifying concept that comes through in both the music and the lyrics.  It's way more of a concept album that most actual concept albums.  Evocation I was described by its own authors as a concept album, and it's way less concept-y than Everything Remains.

Is Everything Remains amazing?  Hopefully I've made it clear that I think it is.  Is it better than Slania?  Hmm... hmmm.  Damn, that's tough.  Slania came first and took the listener on a BIG sonic journey, whereas this is more of a refinement of what they've already done.  On the other hand, there's something to be said for refining a form into near-perfection.  What we have here is a record that just delivers banger after banger.  To this pop-metal fan who discovered the band with Origins, this is Eluveitie's sweet spot.  It may be the most exciting record I've discovered that's not Origins in the past year.  So, okay, we'll go there.  Slightly better than Slania.  1a and 1b in their echelon so far.

- Favorite track:  "Quoth The Raven"

- Runner up:  "Sempiternal Embers"

- Least favorite track: "Isara"

- Overall rating:  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)  Everything Remains (As It Never Was)

2)  Slania

3)  Spirit

4)  Evocation I – The Arcane Dominion

On to Helvetios whenever I get around to it!

*I don't know who's doing the choir of male vocals - and it doesn't sound multi-tracked - since Chigrel is the only male member of the band credited with any vox except for one guest spot.