CELLAR DARLING - This Is The Sound (2017)

Does a review of Eluveitie's discography necessitate talking about every other musical project that every one of its thirty (no exaggeration) past and present official members has been a part of?  Obviously not.  I do think Cellar Darling is a specific unique situation, though.  100% of Cellar Darling is former Eluveitie core members who both were major contributors to their sound and songwriting and very publicly left the main band together to form their own group.  This isn't a side project or a subsequent project.  For me it qualifies as a full-on Doctor Who style "bigeneration" of Eluveitie.  So to speak.

Cellar Darling is Anna, Ivo, and Merlin, and I can't say who wrote what because they all get songwriting credit as a unit.  It ain't Chigrel, though!  Ivo handles bass on the record as well as guitar, and when touring they had some live people to fill in on bass, keys, etc... including at different times Shir-Ran Yinon and freakin' Rafi Kirder, both also ex-Eluveitie.  So, I gotta wonder what that dynamic was like. 

Track One:  "Avalanche"

Ah, I feel right at home opening with a little slow hurdy-gurdy passage.  Ah. what, what the hell?!  The instant Anna starts singing it's clear we're in a new world.  The "Ava-lava-lava-lanche" chorus was the overlapping vocals is... okay, not what I'm used to.  I'd call it pure pop, except that it sounds like it's tuned down a half step to make it all off kilter... it ain't metal and I'm not sure it's folk.  Then she starts a more normal voice, and then starts doing high-pitched chanty stuff and then back into that chorus...  What exactly is going on here?  My first impulse was to hate it, because I don't personally enjoy listening to pop divas do long runs, and this reminds me of that despite the instrumentation.  After more listens, I can acknowledge that there's more to this song than meets the eye in that's a musically interesting composition.  My heart hasn't quite melted.  I don't like Anna sounding wispy and Disney-y, and I really don't like the "ava-lava-lava-lava" main hook, which is the bad kind of earworm.

Starting TITS (kind of an unfortunate acronym for the record's title, but what can you do) with "Avalanche" certainly sends a message.  Not a good one, IMHO.

Track Two:  "Black Moon"

At first, some of the same sonic issues as the last song - specifically, the band is producing a type of song that I do not personally want to listen to.  Subsequently, at 0:25, the bassline drops in, Merlin speeds up the drumming, and Anna shifts to a good grittier low register for the prechorus.  At 0:37, we're poised for a soaring chorus that I love almost as much as I hate the one from "Avalavalavalavalanche."  As usual, I don't have the exact words to describe why one earworm of a vocal melody is the good kind rather than the bad kind (for me).  I'd say that it's a comfortable register for Anna so she can hit the high notes with real power, and that the highest part is presaged by a note that turns the whole thing into a satisfying minor chord that .  I really like the fills transitioning into and out of the chorus too, and the bassline, and the way the gurdy fills in for a string section during the bridge.  I really like "Black Moon" as a folk infused pop-metal track.

Track Three:  "Challenge"

"Challenge" is a kind of the title track, incorporating the phrase "this is the sound."  Rather basic song - simple riff, simple melody, and pretty dumb lyrics as the narrator basically declares that you need to back off, she'll take you on.  (She's headstrong, so to speak.)  Pretty mid.  Why is this the lead single?  Why are such talented musicians squandering their skills on something so generic?

[EDIT FROM A FEW WEEKS LATER:  Ah, now I see, after the chorus was stuck in my head for weeks after half-watching a live gig from the era.  "Challenge" is indeed catchy, which doesn't make it any less of an insipid, annoying song.]

Track Four:  "Hullaballoo"

This one has Ivo doing more of a poor-man's Soundgarden grunge riff, and Anna continuing to sing in a generic rock-chick style, although the simple presence of a hurdy gurdy again keeps the song from being quite a generic rock song free of folk elements.  Still mostly is just that, though.  Pretty mid.

 

Track Five:  "Six Days"

Okay, this is different.  "Six Days" abruptly drops into the middle of the record with a 5.5-minute mini-epic driven by keyboard, with the guitars dropping in and out as demanded.  And flute!  Some actual folk elements from this folk-metal band!  The lyrics tell an actual story, going through the six days after the end of everything and the "one faithful man" who insists on "holding on."  The lyrical pattern of going one day at a time ("on the first day..." etc) is almost always a winner.*  The inspirational "hold on" part comes in late and very much is an earned evolution of the song to set up its ambiguous ending.  

It's hard to understate how much more ambitious "Six Days" is than everything that's come so far, and what a breath of fresh air it is for the record.

Track Six:  "The Hermit"

Pretty mid.  Mid in the same way most of the early tracks were.  To be a tiny bit fair, I'm not really ready to absorb anything that comes right after "Six Days."

Track Seven:  'Water"

Our first of two two-parters begins with a pretty 1.5-minute hurdy gurdy and woodwind piece with some ethereal vocals.  Pleasant enough setup for...

Track Eight:  "Fire, Wind, & Earth"

The track named after the other three elements*** is more Tool-lite (with female vocals and hurdy gurdy, of course) rather than the Evanescence-lite and Soungarden-lite we've been mostly seeing so far.  I'm not sure if it's my favorite song on TITS, but it is pretty clearly the "coolest" song on the album, if that makes sense, between the almost legato rhythm line on the chorus that blurs the metal and folk instruments and the way the vocal parts jump between a few different keys in a smooth succession.  Strong songcraft here.

Track Nine:  "Rebels"

Kind of an odd song.  I do like the lively hurdy part, there's a very goofy pop bridge that's short enough not to sink things, and there's a chorus that culminates in a wordless "ooh ooh ooh" part over a nu-metal riff.  I guess it mostly works for what it is.  So, something a little different that might benefit from being more different.

Track Ten:  "Under The Oak Tree..."

This time the main song of the two-parter is the first one, with "...High Above These Crowns" being more epilogue.  UTOT attempts yet another pastiche of popular rock music, trying for more of a post-metal or sludge thing on the verses built around a distorted wall of riffage in between lines, though the chorus is back to more of a Tool-style traveling riff.  Here the narrator is constantly demanding "why did you go-o-o-o?" to an apparently dead friend.  I think I've about had a lifetime's fill of rock songs in which the survivor blames the dead one for whatever they're going through... although the song is vague about the cause of death and about what exactly the narrator saw in the friend's eyes that made her eventually accept the outcome.  Anyway, song overall is pretty mid.

Track Eleven:  "...High Above These Crowns"

Okay, I do like this aftermath in which the living character from the last song is now fully on board with wishing for a graceful transition to whatever's next for the dead character, complete with an appropriately mid-tempo ascending vocal and instrumental melody.

Track Twelve:  "Starcrusher"

No idea what this one is supposed to be about - crushing stars and splitting asunder: the night sky?  I assume I'm missing a metaphor.  Has the sort of chorus that keeps me from turning the song off while it's playing, without allowing me to remember a thing about it five minutes later.

Track Thirteen:  "Hedonia"

After having listened to TITS so far, one is of course expecting the next track to be a proggy seven-minute thing that starts as a folk ballad and becomes a full on, well, prog-rock song, with a bunch of time changes.  And eventually a full-on attempt at a metal gurdy riff.  And all sung in Swiss-German.  

The "expecting" part was sarcastic, obviously.  What's not sarcastic is that taking the song on its own as its own thing, I find a lot to like.  The melodies are all pleasant, whilst the piece goes a bunch of directions on the way to being a unified whole.

Track Fourteen:  "Redemption"

That ethereal "take me to the moor" melody is just wonderful.  Wistful and haunting enough that then throwing a bunch of metal chords doesn't weaken its punch at all, and gives Anna a springboard to do that "forget it all" part, and ultimately turn the song's messy ending into a swell of despair that abruptly, and unsettlingly, cuts off into nothing.  

If I didn't love big chunks of this record, what exactly did I want from an Anna Murphy fronted folk metal band?  This.  "Redemption" is basically exactly what I wanted. 

Non-album:  "The Prophet's Song"

All of my streaming services have Cellar Darling releasing a standalone song roughly halfway between This Is The Sound and The Spell.  So, may as well give it a few spins.  Overall, a slightly strange narrative tune that does a few weird things.  I'm most intrigued by two elements - the unexpectedly long a capella section, in which Anna harmonizes with herself with enough different pitches that I'm unsettled in a good way, and the gradual lyric shift from "the wise man" to "the madman."  Not sure I love it, but certainly way more ambitious and interesting than the majority of Cellar Darling's debut.  Give me "The Prophet's Song" over "Avalavalavalavalavalavalavalavalanche" any day.

Additional thoughts:

Okay, woof.  Look, This Is The Sound has way too much talent involved to be a bad record.  This Is has several legitimately good tracks, if not always especially memorable.  What This Is does not have is a distinct musical identity.  The lyrics don't have any sort of unifying theme or tone or say much that hasn't been said, unless you're impressed rather than eye-rolly at the fact that three separate songs manage to make seemingly unrelated references to characters being tortured by wind.  Obviously Cellar Darling isn't going to make an Eluveitie record, they're going to make something of their own.  I'm just struck by how many songs sound like something that a bunch of other guys would have made.  Reading these writeups should be proof that I love a certain flavor of pop side of metal, one that overlaps neatly with what Anna and company gave us during Eluveitie's poppier moments.  I don't love the warmed over nu-metal primarily presented here.  Even though I really do quite like a good chunk of This Is, I also find about half of its tracks to be outright boring.

Where does this band go from here?  Well, I happen to know already that their second record is a concept album with many professed prog elements.  I hope so!  To me that's pretty clearly where their strength lies.  Write more epic narrative songs that go places.  "Six Days."  "Hedonia."  "Redemption."  "The Prophet's Song."  Cellar Darling obviously needs to try to be that band more often.  Now, would a commitment to the style still leave room for them to work in some shorter, punchier pop-metal songs in the vein of "Black Moon" and "Fire, Wind, & Earth?"  Um, maybe?  Hopefully?

Favorite track (album only):  "Redemption"

Runner up:  "Six Days"

Least favorite track:  "Challenge"

Rating:  2.5/5

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

1)  Origins

2)  Everything Remains (As It Never Was)

3)  Slania

4)  Helvetios

5)  Spirit

6)  Evocation I – The Arcane Dominion

7)  This Is The Sound [Cellar Darling]

On to Eluveitie's Evocation II whenever I get around to it!

*"On the first day X, on the second day Y" etc. is very much NOT to be confused with the lyrical pattern of going through days of the week ("Monday X, Tuesday Y," etc).  The former is usually pretty great.  Every song that has ever done the latter is a flaming pile of dogshit.**  Two very different things.

**Yes, definitely including "Friday I'm In Love."  Fuck "Friday I'm In Love," fuck the Cure, and motherfuck the zeitgeist that has declared that that song has the slightest bit of merit or reason to exist.

***Obviously, not to be confused with a certain horrible band whose name includes the same three classical elements in a different order.  You know the one.  They have that one song that's so inexplicably beloved whist so self-evidently terrible that it makes "Friday I'm In Love" seem benign.