Eluveitie - Spirit

Artist : Eluveitie (2002 - present)

Album : Spirit (2006)

Genre : Folk Metal (+ Death, Pagan, and Celtic)

Rating : ***** ***½ (out of 10*)

This Week I'm Listening To...
Spirit was Eluveitie's debut album, if you don't count their earlier demo Ven. Their second album, Slania, was released earlier this year, but I haven't heard it yet.

Eluveitie is another promising folk-metal band, this time from Switzerland. The Korpiklaani influence is obvious, but if Korpiklaani leans a bit towards the folk side of folk-metal, Eluveitie leans a bit toward the metal side. Some of the lyrics are in English; some are in the dead language of Gaulish.

What's To Like...
The folk stuff is excellent; the metal stuff is good. The female vocals, as usual, are clean and beautiful. The two genres blend effortlessly with each other. A wide range of folk instruments are used. The energy is upbeat, and the tunes are head-bashingly catchy.

What's Not To Like...
Most of the male vocals are , of course, grunts. I know, I know; that's to be expected in Doom Metal, but sheesh, it gets old. The grunting is indecipherable, but that's okay, cuz you probably don't speak any Gaulish anyway.

It's time For A New Acronym...
I think I'll invent a new one : "SYGASA". Which for some reason, reminds me of that now-obsolete one, WYSIWYG. SYGASA stands for "Stop Your Grunting And Sing Already". Instead of repeating my whine on every review of Metal albums, I'll just write Sygasa, and move on.

But I digress. Despite the grunting (which Liz does not like one bit), this is an excellent album. It's exciting to think what this band could sound like once they get a couple more albums of seasoning under their belts. Slania is said to be more "mainstream-oriented" and "folksier", which should appeal to me. We shall see.

And BTW, you can find a couple Eluveitie videos/audios out at YouTube. Check 'em out there and see if you don't agree that this is an exceptional Folk-Metal group.