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Artist: Elvenking |
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Now and again you will come across a quite different approach to one genre and again this phenomena has come to my attention in the form of Folk Metallers Elvenking’s latest album 'Two Tragedy Poets (And A Caravan Of Weird Figures)' ... to give it its full title. The band has always brought in its folk influences in the their sound but more as background sounds and never in the forefront as they have on this latest release. The
album originally started out as an acoustic project reviving older
material and giving it a new sound but such was the bands enthusiasm for
the project they decided to write new material along those more Folkish
lines, yes there are three older songs given the Folk makeover and one
quite superb cover, but the remainder of the album is all new. The album get's underway with the instrumental ‘The Caravan Of Weird Figures’ that really gets you in the mood for what is to come. Skyclad and The Levellers come to mind instantly when you hear the opener and this mix of fiddle, flute and more traditional guitars and drums really works and shows that you don’t have to go down the death and mayhem, good and evil, horror and fantasy paths in pursuit of Power Metal, this is the sort of album you can imagine DEATH listening too on his day off, with his slippers on, a pipe in one hand and the worries of the world a life time away. The album really get's started with ‘Another Awful Hobs Tale’ with the instant folk metal shining through with violins and pipes taking the listener on a path that is remarkably listenable whist still having some power metal structure. With Damna’s vocals at home with the more sedate sound the likes of ‘From Blood To A Stone’ and ‘Ask A Silly Question’, he really mixes things up, and the superb ‘She Lives At Dawn’ is where he really excels with a moody melancholy vocal on this short but sublime track. Even the re-recorded ‘A Winters Wake’ and ‘The Wanderer’ transfer well to this more Folkish sound. But one track that really stands out the bands version of Belinda Carlisle’s ‘Heaven Is A Place On Earth’, which if someone had asked me to imagine a folk version of the song, I would have found it hard to put into words, but it works really well I think mainly due to Damna’s tremendous versatile vocals and the wonderful arrangement. If
you want to hear something rather different and are open minded enough
to appreciate this album for what it is, evocative whilst still new and
groundbreaking then you’ll really love this album. |
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Tracklisting: |
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