Every once in a while you come across a band that just blows you away and you wonder why didn’t check them out earlier. This is what I just experienced with Eluveitie (pronounced El-vey-tee). "Evocation I" is Eluveitie’s third album, acoustic with 15 tracks plus 2 bonus on the limited edition. There is an undeniable amount of musical talent in this Swiss folk metal group whose style can be described as a mix of folk and melodic death metal.

Perhaps after giving this a listen, like me, it won’t matter that you don’t understand one word of the lyrics – it’s that good. Most of the lyrics on this album are sung in Gaulish, though this is not the case for all the songs from their previous non-acoustic albums.

A good number of the tracks on "Evocation I" are instrumental, some with spoken word over the music. Title track ‘The Arcane Dominion’ starts soft with pipes carrying the melody then crescendos up to do it all over again. Even with very few vocal lines, this is a great track – atmospheric and flowing yet still heavy.

Lightning fast with a few low, growling vocals heard on ‘The Cauldron of Renascence’. I’m not sure what’s being played (pipes, whistles?), but the sound and melody is incredible. Very folksy ‘Nata’ could be really cool performed at a live show with vocals sung over one sustained note. ‘Voveso in Mori’ is one of the slower songs with vocals and features some nice harmonics. One of few songs with a standard verse/chorus structure, ‘Omnos’ is the most sing-along worthy of the bunch and is also one of the bonus tracks done up ‘metal’ style.

The variety of instruments utilized on this album gives the songs a full and interesting sound, and the production is very good. Listening to a few non-acoustic songs on the bands’ MySpace page revealed that their non-acoustic songs are hard and heavy melodic death metal with folk influences heard in the musical passages.

One wouldn’t think that this band would experience much turnover. After all, how many people do you know who play the Uilleann pipes or speak Gaulish? But surprisingly, the band has in fact experienced such turnover, especially in their early years.

Eluveitie will be headlining the Heathenfest tour this fall in the U.S., and I will most certainly be there.

http://www.eluveitie.ch
http://www.myspace.com/eluveitie