Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion is the third album from Switzerland’s Eluveitie. After putting out a couple of hybrid folk metal/melodic death metal albums, earning a reputation for their second album Slania in particular, Eluveitie decided to produce an album that stripped the metal out of their sound and moved frontman Chrigel Glanzmann into the background and stuck hurdy gurdy player Anna Murphy in his place as the band’s lead vocalist. This can only be beyond awful right?

Well actually it’s not. In fact although I know I’m going to get some flak for this, but Evocation I is actually, as far as I’m concerned, Eluveitie’s best album. At least it’s the only album of theirs that I feel really warrants the regard they’ve received within the folk metal scene, with the paradox in that sentence being that this isn’t even a metal album.

Allow me to explain myself. I’ve never been big on Eluveitie on a personal or even professional level. Slania is a solid and respectable album but I never felt it was masterful or anything, and their prior releases never really grabbed me. I also didn’t have a high opinion at all of Evocation I’s successor, Everything Remains as it Never Was. The problem was I also felt that Eluveitie’s Celtic folk sounds were right on the mark, but their metal was generally lacking. Then in 2009 they pulled Evocation I out of the hat, gave the metal the boot and allowed their folk influences to shine.

And shine it does. Evocation I features a nice varied approach to the folk instrumentation that ranges from the melancholic to the energetic. The lyrics on the album are mostly in the language Gaulish, giving an ancient and authentic feel to the folk music produced. This is spoiled slightly by the band retaining some small use of death growling in a few places, showing something of an unwillingness to complete isolate the sound from their past work, and seriously death growling plus pure folk music is a total no go. Fortunately it’s used sparingly.

Vocals are not as common in the album as a typical Eluveitie release. Many songs come across as quite ritual-like, although since I don’t know the first thing about Gaulish I can’t really tell what anything is about, although I do know that based on her dominant vocal contributions to the album the band should just move Anna Murphy up to the microphone full-time, since her vocals have much more charm and work better with the folk than Chrigel Glanzmann’s growl ever did. It only takes the more song-like tracks Brictom and Omnos to fully realise this.

I guess for those who are used to their normal work, Evocation I is a bit of a weird one, which may stop fans of the band from fully realising what a treasure the album really is. It would be fair to put it down as an acquired taste certainly, although I’d like to think that any metal fan who listens to folk metal regularly will be able to appreciate just want has been created here.

Unfortunately as I mentioned earlier Eluveitie went back to the day job so to speak after this album, and Everything Remains as it Never Was majorly disappointed me and they’re also just put out their fifth album, Helvetios, another metal album, which I haven’t heard yet but will be getting a review sometime in the near future. Fortunately as the title of this one suggests it’s actually the first part of a two album concept, so one day we should be treated to an Evocation II. I for one however wish that Eluvietie would get their act in gear and realise that this is what they are really good at. Evocation one has a few small hiccups, but this is only just below the borderline of a true masterpiece.

9.4/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))

I’m sitting here now listening to Italian metal act Lacuna Coil’s latest full-length, Dark Adrenaline, wondering what the hell happened to the band that at one time I considered to number among my favourite bands. Lacuna Coil started life as a gothic metal act and they were a good one. Then in 2006, after a four year break between studio albums they released Karmacode and their sound changed to a more alternative metal direction. Ironically it was Karmacode that first brought the band to my attention, with the quite addictive song Our Truth, but upon looking into their back catalogue I realised to my surprise that in 2006 Karmacode was actually their weakest album to date. When the band followed it up with Shallow Life in 2009 I wasn’t much impressed. The album was no worse than Karmacode but it was no better either, and went even further in the alternative metal direction. If two albums of lesser quality in a new style to their old style wasn’t enough to go by, Dark Adrenaline comes across as the final nail in the coffin. No new ground or no return to the style they were good at, and not even another Shallow Life in that it at least wasn’t worse than the previous album. Dark Adrenaline is Lacuna Coil’s worst album, no contest.

Like with the last couple of albums we’re dealing with fairly typical alternative metal riffs. I wouldn’t say the guitars play a very big part in Lacuna Coil’s sound at all, and the guitarists are rarely given the opportunity to shine due to leads being a rarity. The music does nothing really to reward the more demanding metal fan, in fact to be blunt I think it’s pretty obvious that ever since 2006 Lacuna Coil hasn’t cared at all about pleasing metal fans, they’re out to please fans of commercial music, which this is, and while I’ve always considered myself quite vocal to support that the equation ‘commercial + metal != bad’ is true, this is a pretty poor attempt at merging the two worlds. Lacuna Coil has proved capable of being good at it in small doses with Karmacode and Shallow Life, but the problem with Dark Adrenaline is that it lacks any sort of highlights regardless of which audience I try to review this review in perspective to. It’s an utter disappointment to say the least.

My reviews are normally longer and more detailed than this but ultimately with this one there’s just really not much that can be said. If you enjoyed Lacuna Coil’s earlier material and have been disappointed since Karamcode then there is no reason at all for you to even consider Dark Adrenaline. It’s a much weaker more of the same album. And if you do happen to enjoy their alternative metal direction there’s still not much point in you considering Dark Adrenaline, because it’s a much weaker more of the same album. It offers nothing that Karamcode and Shallow Life didn’t do better, and just makes me wonder why the hell a good band would throw away everything they had going for them like Lacuna Coil did. Even frontwoman Cristina Scabbia sounds like she’s having an off-day with her vocals on this one and the instrumentation leaves a lot to be desired. I really have nothing positive to say at all.

1.8/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))

Power Dive is the second album from German symphonic metal act Voices of Destiny. The style of the album more specifically draws on gothic metal and power metal within the dominantly symphonic sound, using the beauty and the beast vocal format. The album was released in 2012.

Now I consider symphonic metal to be one of my favourite styles of metal, especially the female fronted bands, but deep down I’m also highly critical of the genre, especially the female fronted bands. The reason? Repetition. There are not many bands that really manage to hold my attention now that I’ve got acquainted with a wide range of acts. In fact although I guess some may argue, I don’t think you can beat the big name acts of the style at their own game, and that’s exactly the problem with Voices of Destiny’s second album. It’s my first encounter with the band, and while I won’t go as far to say that it will be my last, the band is young and all and as they do show later in the album may have something surprising up their sleeves for the future, Power Dive isn’t an album that makes me want to revisit it in a hurry.

If you’ve heard Epica’s music then you’ll know kind of what to expect with Voices of Destiny, except what we have here comes across not so much an Epica clone act as a poor man’s version of them. The band’s best asset would have to be female vocalist Maike Holzmann, whose vocals are very typical of the style but that’s why she’s the band’s best asset. She’s just right for the style, it’s just everything else going on around her that typically lets her down badly for the majority of Power Dive. Her male counterpart Lukas Palme, who is also the keyboardist, is not a bad growler at all, but he just doesn’t put on a performance that really offsets Maike Holzmann’s vocals. The symphonic keyboards don’t really add a lot to the music either in most of the tracks. You can hear them in the background having their odd moments, but there’s no epic fusion of heavy guitar riffs and classical music and when symphonic metal fails to be epic, unless it has other redeeming features, I typically just lose interest and sadly that’s just what has happened on Power Dive. It’s not really rare for me to be a bit disappointed in symphonic metal albums due to not really bringing anything new to the table, but many of them can end up still being solid albums. It is rare however for me to be as disappointed though as I am with this one.

The reason for that is that the songs just aren’t memorable. The elements are there, but they just don’t come together. The title track in particular is just the most extremely boring symphonic metal song I think I’ve ever heard. Things pick up a bit after that, as a bit of power metal influence comes into play, but it takes until Dedication, which is the eighth of eleven tracks, until I really hear something that tells me that Voices of Destiny have potential within their field. I actually enjoyed this track a fair bit. An album that kept up this calibre may not have been groundbreaking or innovative but it at least would have been a solid addition to a symphonic metal fan’s collection. Unfortunately you probably don’t need to be told that if you have to wait until the eighth track to get a highlight then the album has serious problems.

But what’s this? That’s right after suddenly delivering the good eight tracks in Voices of Destiny surprise me and do in again straight away with Your Hands. It’s too a lesser degree certainly but after what I just about got used to pre-Dedication this is surprising to say the least. This was a reason for pointedly saying ‘mostly’ and ‘majority’ a couple of times in the earlier stages of this review. I find it totally flummoxing how an artist can get it wrong for so long during an album and then suddenly start delivering the goods this far in. Yeah you guessed it, they did it yet again with Red Winter's Snow I (Prophets Of Doom). Okay, so it still kind of suffers with the issues outlined earlier in this review but at the end of the day this is damn solid symphonic metal, and ultimately that’s all I really demand of the genre. Innovation is very nice of course, but if a symphonic metal album can be made up of solid material with an epic sound then I’ll be a happy bunny.

It just makes me want to scream at the injustice of it all. Had the whole album been of the quality they suddenly pulled out of the hat towards the end we’d have been talking a recommendable release, but ultimately all Voices of Destiny proved with Power Dive is how inconsistent they are. It didn’t help that you could break the album up into sections such as ‘Cliché Intro Track’, ‘Really Boring Track’, ‘Okay Tracks’, ‘Great Tracks’ and ‘Just as Cliché Outro Track’. Really Voices of Destiny had enough material for a decent EP here, which it may as well be with so much filler within the album in one solid block. Even one more great track could have just about pushed Power Dive into purely average territory, since Maike Holzmann really does shine vocally, but with far more average to bad stuff outweighing the good stuff, I ultimately have to consider this a below average symphonic metal release.

4.3/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven(http://metaltube.freeforums.org))

Bilateral is the second album from Norwegian progressive metal act Leprous. The 2011 album also has avant-garde qualities and features a quest vocal slot from notable black and prog metal artist Ihsahn (ex-Emperor) during the track Thorn. The band’s entire line-up has performed with Ihsahn live for his solo material. Given Ihsahn’s strengths as an artist you know he’s not going to have just anyone backing him up in the live environment, and Leprous certainly showcase the skills to be a force to be reckoned with on Bilateral. But before you get your hopes up for a masterpiece read on.

The music here is not always the heaviest that I’ve heard for something branded as metal, even though the band can still whack out an aggressive riff every now and then and there are some harsh vocals within the album. There’s a lot of light and atmospheric stuff on the album, too much really to consider Bilateral to be completely metal. Bilateral strikes me more along the lines of atmospheric metal even at the times when the band heavy it up, adding that avant-garde twist to give a weird feel to some of the sections. To be honest so long as the music is good I couldn’t really care less if the band doesn’t blast out their stuff as intensely as humanly possible, and this is especially okay for the progressive metal genre which isn’t a style you should be looking to if all you want is bone crushing riffs. There’s just one problem with Leprous’ Bilateral though; for all the technical and progressive prowess that the band shows much of Bilateral is just plain boring. It’s all very well being flash, but when the songs lack any sort of substance, things just go straight down the drain.

While I won’t go quite as far as say that Bilateral is offensively bad, we’re are still dealing with some pretty soulless prog here that is lacking that distinct spark to make it awesome. If the band had gone down the atmospheric prog rock route for the whole album then we may have been talking a success story instead, but the fact that there is still enough metal here to warrant the prog metal tag despite the amount of light stuff means that the music sounds as if the metal was added for the sake of it. You can hear it, but it’s just there, adding nothing to the overall quality of the music. Rarely do the guitars knock out a riff of note, which is what really holds this back on the metal front. It took until the fourth track, Thorn, before Leprous delivered something on this front. Waste of Air also has a heavier sound than what the album had led me to believe was the norm up until that point, but with a 5:33 duration it’s only so far into the track I can get without noting how repetitive the guitars really are much of the time. It’s still one of the album’s stronger moments overall, but it just reinforces that feeling that the metal is there just for the sake of it.

The vocals don’t help either. Although there are some growls most of the vocals are clean and melodic, which is fitting enough for the atmospheric stuff in itself but it’s a bland performance that puts me in mind of all those so called rock acts that get chart success than anything remotely suited to metal. Even Ihsahn showing up in a single track can’t really save the vocal front. It dawns on me that maybe I just get a new perspective a review Bilateral from a different angle, but ultimately I write for metal sites, who expect a metal perspective, and upon its conclusion Bilateral just didn’t work for me on a metal level. I’d really like it to be otherwise, since these guys really do show that they have the chops to be exceptional, but that’s all Bilateral really has going for it.

I guess that if this style of prog/avant-garde is your thing then Bilateral would sound a lot better to your ears then it did to mine. I’d say the track Acquired Taste is quite aptly named and that a fan’s only rating would be most appropriate overall, but the fact that it’s a metal album and it’s the metal that let this one down means that fan’s only rating is decidedly lower end.

3.2/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))

The Landing is the seventh album from German power metal band Iron Savior, and it may just be in possession of the best artwork of 2011. Talk about eye-catching! Fortunately though the music of the album more than lives up to the greatness of the cover art, because with The Landing we’re talking classic guitar-driven power metal, which admittedly isn’t without its portion of cheese, but is an absolutely killer release.

I don’t know what it is about the Germans, but they seem to be able to consistently turn out top quality power metal more so than any other country I know, having given the world big name acts like Helloween, Blind Guardian, Gamma Ray and Avantasia to name but a handful of the big name acts. The Landing is my first encounter with the lesser known Iron Savior, who actually has connections to most of those bigger bands I just mentioned in that their original line-up featured both Kai Hansen (ex-Helloween, Gamma Ray) and Thomen Stauch (ex-Blind Guardian). Both have since departed Iron Savior, leaving it in the hands of frontman Piet Sielck who has continued the band to the point that recently he left his other band, Savage Circus, in order to focus all his attention on Iron Savior. I haven’t heard the work the band did with the more well known musicians, but I can safely say that if The Landing is anything to go by, Iron Savior is doing very well as it is!

As I said this is the guitar driven kind of power metal, which in itself means that the music doesn’t suffer from being too cheesy, especially since Sielck’s vocals have a rough edge to them rather than the high pitched soaring melody associated with vocalists like Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween). What cheesy stuff is here is in the lyrics of a couple of the tracks, namely Heavy Metal Never Dies and R.U. Ready. With names like that you don’t really need to be told why do you? Of course I think any metalhead can appreciate the sentiment expressed in the former track, even if such lyrics have been somewhat over done by various artists over the years. R.U. Ready is in the same vein, leaning more towards rock this time though, and contains lines that reference classic tracks such as Smoke on the Water, Born to be Wild, Breaking the Law and more. This is as far as the cheese in The Landing goes though, and even then, I guess this only rates a 2 at most on the cheese-o-metre.

The music on The Landing can be considered one dimensional, apart from one foray into balladry territory on Before the Pain, but that’s not really a problem since it’s clear that Iron Savior is a band who know what they’re good at, and they deliver exceptionally on The Landing, even in those cheesy moments. The real goods though are delivered in the form of The Savior, Starlight, March of Doom, Moment in Time and the closing No Guts No Glory. The production job, done by Piet Sielck, gives a crisp sound to the guitars, resulting in a clear sound but it may have worked even better done in such a way to give the riffs a bit of additional heaviness but all in all it’s a professional job that shows off Sielck’s vocals especially well.

The Landing may be something of a typical power metal album in some ways but it also stands out in front of the crowd of acts where the cheese is way too prevailing, which is one of the reasons that I believe that the power metal genre gets a bit of bad press, especially from the more die-hard metalheads. The Landing is one of those albums that shows that the genre, when done at its best, is one that means just as much business as thrash, death and traditional metal. Iron Savior proves that they deserve to be right up there with the greats with this one and The Landing comes highly recommended to all, especially if you’re one of those that when confronted with power metal thinks ‘flower metal’ and promptly ignores it. The Landing is the sort of album that should make you realise just how much you’re missing out on.

9.4/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))