Eluveitie – Evocation 1 – The Arcane Dominion
Eluveitie – Evocation 1–The Arcane Dominion
Release Date: April 17, 2009
Track Listing:
1. Sacrapos - At First Glance
2. Brictom
3. The Arcane Dominion
4. A Girl's Oath
5. Within The Grove
6. The Cauldron Of Renascence
7. Nata
8. Omnos
9. Carnutian Forest
10. Dessumiis Luge
11. Gobanno
12. Voveso In Mori
13. Memento
14. Ne Regv Na
15. Sacrapos - The Disparaging Last Gaze
Eluveitie ('The Helvetian' in the Etruscan language and the name of the Celtic tribe in Switzerland) is a folk metal band from, yes, Switzerland. Their last album Slania was a great success and the band has done shows with the Paganfest in North America and more or less every venue in Europe.
Evocation 1 - The Arcane Dominion (or Evocation in short) is their new album. It is the first part of a two-disc concept album and it is acoustic. Acoustic albums always tend to be a bit lame. Think of all those unplugged albums from the nineties. Since folk metal is based on folk music, it is logical that a band like Eluveitie should release an acoustic album, but Evocation still has all the elements from the Eluvietie as we know.
Evocation is also the first album without the Kirder brothers. Rafi (bass) and Sevan (with an arsenal of traditional instruments) left the band after the 2008 edition of the Paganfest so Slania was their last album, but maybe this opened the way for a full length acoustic album. Who knows. One thing is for sure; the acoustic version of "Samon" on Slania is a real teaser for Evocation (and the only song without the sheer madness of a regular Eluveitie song on that album).
Anna, who is normal the girl with the hurdy gurdy, has been promoted to lead singer and her voice is perfect for this album and I hope she will do more lead vocals in the future. All the texts are in ancient Gaulish, an extinct Celtic language from 2,000 years ago. This does not really matter because the music speaks for itself. Evocation could be a good soundtrack for movies like Braveheart or Conan the Barbarian (Conan the Destroyer is just a god-awful bad movie, despite Grace Jones' great performance).
| Curent line up: | |
| Merlin Sutter | Drums & percussion |
| Chrigel Glanzmann | Vocals, mandola, acoustic guitar, whistles, etc |
| Anna Murphy | Hurdy-Gurdy, flute and lead vocals |
| Ivo Heinzi | Acoustic guitars |
| Kay Bren | Acoustic and fretless bass |
| Meri Tadic | Fiddle & vocals |
| Sime Koch | Acoustic guitars |
| Päde Kistler | Tin & Low Whistles, Scottish highland pipes, redpipe |
Coincidence or not, but the even songs are more mainstream oriented. "The Arcane Dominion," "The Cauldron of Renascence," and "Omnos" could easily fit in a normal Eluveitie set. Some others have a really dark mood, like "Nata." Think of Karl Sanders' (the Nile mastermind) solo album Saurian Meditation. Sometimes Evocation has a bit of the Page & Plant's Unledded sound (must be the hurdy gurdy).
Do not expect a carbon copy of Slania or some easy listing songs. This is a pretty dark album with lots of varity and it might bridge the gap between folk metal and plain folk music.
www.myspace.com/eluveitie
www.eluveitie.ch
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