ELUVEITIE - Odds & ends post #2

For now, this is the end of my Eluveitie project.  I'm going to resist the urge to make vague summary statements beyond the fact that I like Eluveitie and have enjoyed listening to them, in part because they're still an active band; I'm just caught up now.  Here are some theoretically quick thoughts on the material they've released since their last record.

Part One:  Live At Monsters Of Rock 2019

I kind of want to put this part later in the post since I doubt many would read past it.  I am, however, a stickler for chronology.  So!  Eluveitie put out another official live record, their second or third depending on whether one counts Slania (Tour Edition), and it's the first standalone live release to make it to the streaming services.  The setlist is:

1)  Ategnatos

2)  King

3)  The Call Of The Mountains

4)  Deathwalker

5)  Worship

6)  Artio

7)  Epona

8)  A Rose For Epona

9)  Thousandfold

10)  Ambiramus

11)  Drum solo

12)  Havoc

13)  Breathe

14)  Helvetios

[encore break]

15)  Rebirth

16)  Inis Mona

[Epilogue, I believe pre-taped]

Compared to other Eluveitie releases, they've gotten the mixing pretty solid - I'm sure money helps.  The different components may not be as clear as on the records, but for a live performance, what you really need is to be able to hear the vocalists and to pick up the pivotal violin and woodwind parts.   The parts where the band drops in and out sound great, adding punch to numbers like "Worship," a non-favorite of mine in general that gets a good rendition here.  It helps when your singers can really project, and both seem up to the task.  

Fabienne seems to handle singing in a rock band well, although a little strained on "A Rose For Epona."  By "Breathe" (which is really an earworm), she's back in her zone.  I don't know if I should read anything into the fact that even when Fabienne is the singer, Chigrel is the frontman, the only one who ever talks to the crowd.  I don't know if it's a power thing, a personality thing, or just a newness thing - after all, Anna didn't start grabbing the mic and talking on stage until she'd been in the band a good few years.

Setlist of course goes heavy on the newer tracks, finally swapping out a few longtime standards like "Kingdom Come Undone" in favor of Ategnatos material and the singles from the other records.  It does make sense that they found a space in the gig for Evocation II material, and "Epona" sounds perfectly at home.  (Plus, going from "Epona" into "A Rose For Epona" is so obvious that it'd stood out if they didn't try that sometime.)  I like hearing "Ambiramus" come into its own as a live track, but was disappointed to have it click that the main reason I like it so much is that it's basically a rewrite of "Vianna" (I do still like it, though!).

So many of the quality recordings are from festival gigs, which tend to lean short, but even their full-length concerts rarely top an hour and a half (on this tour seems to be basically the same setlist plus "Quoth The Raven" and "The Slumber").  They have a deep catalogue, so one wishes they could go longer.  Yeah, sure, busy tour schedule, challenges inherent in putting on a high-energy show in a high-energy genre with so many band members, etc.

In short, Live At Monsters Of Rock 2019 is a solid live gig if one wants a reminder that, damn, "King" and "Rebirth" are bangers.  That they are.

Part Two:  The 2022 Singles

Non-album tracks, although there is a single that had them together.  I have been led to believe that these are the only recorded Eluveitie output to feature Annie Riediger, Michalina's short-tenured successor before they decided just not to have a dedicated hurdyist.

One single:  "Exile Of The Gods"

After a growled intro, EOTG quickly reveals itself as a Fabienne song, which is sort of what I expected they'd do for a single.  The problem here is lack of just that one thing that lets me forgive the familiarity of it all.  All it'd take is an unusual folk part, or a really cool riff, or a particularly catchy chorus.  Instead, we get a fairly standard downbeat and yet another chorus built around basically the boring-ass vocal melody from "The Call Of The Mountains," a tune that was a little tedious even before the first time it was recorded.  Even the lively folk bridge, I don't know, it seems rote, like just Eluveitie doing a standard Eluveitie song.  It's a bit of a shame that this is a middling (not bad, just middling) song, since lyrically it goes a few new places from a perspective of guilt and has some nice evocative lyrics in the "like dying leaves" section.

Another single:  "Aidus"

Now, this one I like.  Everyone sounds locked in, with special mention to Alain.  It's a nice bouncy folk riff.  I like the way Chigrel invokes the spoken parts, and quite enjoy the "thy kingdom come!" chantworthy parts.  I love Fabienne's wordless wails as an accent to the choruses.  The slow harp-led bridge with the melody gradually passing to violin, then hurdy, then guitar works well.  Solid melodeath with heavy Celtic folk elements, totally normal music.  It's the Eluveitie brand; just what they do.  In this case I mean that in a very good way.

Part Three:  Illumishade

Although not the stuff of a full writeup, I think it's worth some text to address the Illumishade-sized elephant in the room.  See, really since 2020 Eluveitie has lain mostly fallow, only really making headlines when they make lineup changes (since Ategnatos they've parted ways with two different hurdy gurdy players!) or for whatever explosion happened in Chigrel and Nicole's life (she's very much is not in the band now).  Meanwhile, the vast majority of both the recorded output and live performances that we've seen from the team of Fabienne and Jonas has come via Illumishade, a band they put together with a few other kids from their grad school class or something.  Reddit collectively is convinced that a lot of their attention is there, and that it's only a matter of time before they, especially Fabienne, leave Eluveitie to do Illumishade full time.  Worth noting that the latter is a smaller scale project, though, and I'm sure they're fans of having food money, so...

 

Is this project a universe in its own right the way Eluveitie is?*  Listening to their debut, ECLYPTIC: Wake Of Shadows, well, the ingredients are mostly there.  Not really any folk elements to speak of, more metal with a pop sheen and a splash of symphonic elements.  (Wikipedia describes them as "cinematic and fantasy music, combined with rock and metal.")  I love the idea of a good female-fronted pop-metal band, and find few that quite have that special something, and have found even fewer artists who've successfully combined my love of metal with my love of fantasy stories.  ECLYPTIC was not that special exception that proved either rule.  I hesitate to use a judgmental term like "basic," because Cthulhu knows we don't need any more gatekeeping than there is already... what I mean to say is that for me, the music just doesn't distinguish itself.  I think the melodies are simple and above all the riffs are kind of plodding and similar.  Tracks tend to be quick and to the point, which ought to be good.  There's a variety between the rockers, the ballads, and the mostly-instrumental Trasn-Siberian Orchestra esque stuff.  Fabienne is a solid singer who keeps things earthy and meezo, making her especially convincing on pop-diva tracks like "Rise" where she stands out, and a bit less convincing on the harder rockers in which I expect a vocalist to provide more raw power.  I think it's actually simpler than the above nitpicking: for me the songs just aren't there.  I'm bored by the end of the record.  The hooks need to be hookier, or the guitar work needs to be more virtuostic, or they need to throw in a little extra something.  Seems no surprise, then, that my clear favorite track on the record is "Tales Of Time," the one in which Chigrel pops by for a guest spot.  He's part of the reason the song succeeds - even on Fabienne's songs, the dueling vocalist thing does give us that one more element to make things more interesting.  I think that I also relate to the song's themes, more about celebration instead of about whatever ocean all the other songs are sailing across.  It's kind of unique having a melodic female voice singing about proverbial brotherhood and tale-telling, so I like that.  I wish I had friends with whom to raise a glass and fill a hall with laughter!

For what it's worth, I have listened to 2024's Another Side Of You, and, well, it was interesting enough to earn at least another spin or two.  My main very preliminary impression: the new record goes with longer more elaborate songs than the debut.  Not always a good thing, I know.  Here, it is a positive change, because every time I start threatening to get bored they throw in a new element like an interestingly placed piano part or some chanting or some synths.  Fabienne seems to be a bigger presence who leans into more of her range.  I don't know if the tunes are ever going to grab me, but I am fairly confident that I'll end up concluding that, at minimum, Another Side is a better record than ECLYPTIC.  Like I said, I need more time with it before deciding just how much I like it, but first impressions are pretty positive.

For the moment, my main thought is that it'd be a bit of a shame if the Illumishaders moved out and Eluveitie had to rebuild from the ground up again.  As alluded to in prior posts, at some point it's going to get less inspired and increasingly creepy if Chigrel just keeps putting out the same music with a rotating cast of younger hangers-on rather than continuing to work with people like Kay over multiple albums who've helped shape his vision and grown with it.  Based on the music that they put out in 2019 and 2022, I do think that Eluveitie has a lot in the tank.  I'm certainly glad I have them to follow and, allegedly, new Eluveitie music to look forward to soon.  

I will of course listen to it and write about it, whenever they get around to it!

In the meantime, I have some other ideas for blogging about metal in the months to come.  Rather than doing another deep dive into one band, I have, well, some other ideas.

*or the way Cellar Darling threatened to become... although in my mind they didn't manage it, or at least haven't yet