Album Review – Eluveitie “Helvetios” 2012

  I should begin by mentioning that Eluveitie still rock the house with one of the biggest and most raucous live shows around right now. On-stage they are one of the best metal bands operating, whether you include the “folk” prefix or not. This review is for recorded material only. 

Helvetios surpasses  Eluveitie’s 2010 record Everything Remains as it Never Was in several ways: 

It is faster: by and large Helvetios is a thrashier record than its predecessor. There’s quite a bit of full-bore headbanging with beats just shy of blast velocity. 

It is louder: although there are quieter sections, spoken word bridges and show-stopping ballad “A Rose for Epona” included as part of the journey, the mix is dominated by death vocals and pushes the traditional musical elements away from the centre. 

It is angrier: the concept of Helvetios is a retelling of the historical period of Roman persecution of the Helvetii tribe during the Gallic Wars. The album is boundless in its fury towards Rome’s cultural imperialism; one wonders if a meeting between Celt-positive Eluveitie and Canadian metallic Caesar-freaks Ex Deo would result in some sort of rumble. 

All this being said, the record cannot outstrip the previous release in one critical category: 

It is not as cohesive. In the end, Helvetios is faster, louder and harder but it really isn’t any better. I don’t see myself returning to it nearly as often as I do ERAINW. This is by no means a failure – this is simply a band branching out in new directions and trying different things while remaining true to their fanbase. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next. 7.5 out of 10

Deals and Steals: Juggling Genres

  This shipment from Second Spin is all over the place. Those fine folks missed two of my selections (Eluveitie and Suicidal!) due to an online inventory problem, and actually went to the trouble of emailing me an apology and a coupon. Not bad! Here we go, prices in Cashitos Americanos with nada shipping :

VNV Nation – Of Faith, Power and Glory $8.99. Electronica masterminds continuing down the path of pop.

Prong – Scorpio Rising $4.99. Good price on a “lost” record. Review is already up!

Junkie XL – Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin $8.99. This is the Koch records version, which I’ve been looking for since I found out my Roadrunner version omits the Elvis remix on the disc pressing. Further inspection reveals other serious differences in tracklists. Stuck with keeping both!

Insane Clown Posse – Bang! Pow! Boom! $7.99. It’s fine. I’m an aficionado of pop culture. It’s not like I go to the Juggalo Gathering or anything. It’s fine.

Behemoth – Evangelion $8.99. Decent pricing on digipak with bonus DVD. Heavy as shit, too.

Deicide – Best of Deicide $7.99. Glen Benton’s contributions to Roadrunner United provoked some curiosity to hear more.

Ozzy Osbourne – Essential Ozzy Remastered $10.99. Nice selection of goodies when the mood strikes to remember when he was a working musician.

And the big enchilada of my unwittingly latin-flavoured batch of spiciness:

  Excessive Force – Conquer Your World $8.99. If you’re a KMFDM fan or someone who wished the recording of the early side-projects was better, rest assured the remasters coming out of Metropolis records are serious improvements with bonus tracks, better artwork and extensive liner notes.

Album Review – Eluveitie “Everything Remains as it Never Was” 2010

 Folk metal’s not normally my bagpipe, but I was more than pleasantly surprised by the serious chops this eight-piece Swiss outfit brought to their set opening up for Amon Amarth in April. Everything was tight, loud and performed with gusto. I’ve never someone fully rock out the hurdy-gurdy before, but Anna Murphy put the grind in organ grinder;  hair whips and all.

The disc doesn’t quite capture the feel of the live performance, but it comes close. It’s well-produced and contains plenty of both traditional music and metal of the melodic death variety. My only quibble would be that the two are somewhat divorced in the song structure of the album, which is sort of folk song-metal song-folk-folk-metal-metal-folk with few examples of the cross-pollination of which they are capable (as per their live show) and which I think is their true strength. It’s a minor complaint; the whole thing is enjoyable on its own terms. Now that fellow Helvetians Samael have gone old-school pagan again, can an all-Swiss tour be far behind?

If you’ve always wanted Kalmah to get into a mud fight with the Mediæval Bæbes during a barn-raising, here it is. 8 out of 10