Elvenking - Red Silent Tides

Written by Colin McNamara Monday, 13 September 2010 13:59

Artist: Elvenking
Title: Red Silent Tides
Genre: Folk / Power Metal
Release Date: 17th September 2010
Label: AFM Records

Album Review

Italy’s ELVENKING have really turned themselves around these past few years. 2006 ‘Winter’s Wake’ was a total disaster, and the downward spiral continued with ‘The Scythe’, which was hurriedly released after. The music was certainly folk-ish and power metal, but too soft and cheesy, making the band seem like some minstrel jesters in a kings court. Their style lacked force and conviction. Looking to make up for shame, ELVENKING got their act together and put their softness to use with a nearly full acoustic album titled ‘Two Tragedy Poets’. It fit the band very nicely, and was a fantastic blend of folk metal that really stood its ground. However, not wanting to do the same album twice and hoping to still create heavier, power metal alongside their folk inspired music, ELVENKING still had a lot of work to do. They recruited a new guitarist and then entered the studio, hopefully looking to salvage something of a good album and get the fans to like them again just as much as they enjoyed ‘Two Tragedy Poets’. Two years later, they’ve come up with ‘Red Silent Tides’, an excellent blend of folk and power metal the way it should be.

While so many folk metal bands these days are focused on using bagpipes and flutes, ELVENKING make their mark with violins and acoustic guitars. However, ‘Red Silent Tides’ is much heavier than most fans will anticipate, yet still very melodic. Take, for example, ‘The Last Hour’, which features plenty of folk hymns, but all done of guitar and keyboard. The razor sharp distortion cuts through the air but doesn’t ruin the music by making it fuzzy. And of course, the violins are there to add the beauty. “Silence de Mort” is more of a generic power metal track, but has a great piano / keyboard introduction and features a more metal feel with the interlude solo. Vocalist Damnagoras still can reach high notes with his voice and sound flamboyant, but his voice usually has more of a darker edge during the verses, like Roy Kahn of KAMELOT does.

‘The Cabal’ forsakes all the folk elements and is just great power metal with the way the guitars chug along and the keyboards provide backing melodies. It is meant more to be catchy than anything and takes things at a very even pace the entire track. Fans will either find it boring or enlightening. ‘Runereader’ brings the folk elements back in for a violin interlude while still remaining heavy. ‘Possession’ is probably the heaviest track on the album because of its frantic pace which makes the distortion mix together for a dose of aggression. It’s a bit of a stretch for ELVENKING’s style, but works well and should appease fans of heavier metal. It’s good to see that ELVENKING can hammer a bit more and try not to perform like they’re walking across glass sheets. ‘The Nightmare Will Never End’ has a soft introduction before leading into some interesting electronic “slide” effects from the guitars.

The keyboards mix in with the violins to create a solid wall of sound behind the chugging guitars, almost like carnival music. Fortunately, it isn’t laughable. ‘What’s Left Of Me’ is more acoustic than the other tracks, and makes plenty of use of violin, especially during the interlude. If one is looking for vocal redemption, ELVENKING have found it here. Each note from the guitars and drums match the vocal patterns for an excellent melodic rock track that certainly won’t disappoint fans. They should have just closed the album on that, but instead leave it up to ‘The Play Of The Leaves’ which sounds way too happy, like their earlier material. It completely contrasts with the dark tone that the rest of the album has. At least the violins give off enough energy and style to overlook this change…

While not entirely a masterpiece, this is a huge improvement for ELVENKING compared to their past albums. It’s harder, and still melodic. The band haven’t given up their formula entirely, only improved it. It could have been a bit darker as far as atmosphere goes (the lyrics and album title warrant this), but ELVENKING were always more of an uplifting band than depressing. As long as they keep expanding on their style and try not to fall into a pit of generic sound that can plague so many bands that just put out the same songs album after album, they’ll do fine. It’ll be like the first few years never happened when they were mediocre. Now, they’re finally making a mark.

Tracklist

01. Dawnmelting (4:09)
02. The Last Hour (4:39)
03. Silence De Mort (4:27)
04. The Cabal (4:20)
05. Runereader (5:23)
06. Possession (4:07)
07. Your Heroes Are Dead (3:54)
08. Those Days (4:06)
09. This Nightmare Will Never End (4:46)
10. What's Left Of Me (4:39)
11. The Play Of The Leaves (5:30)

Line-up

Damnagoras - Vocals
Aydan - Guitar
Raffaello "Rafahel" Indri - Guitar
Gorlan - Bass
Elyghen - Keyboards, Violin, Viola
Zender - Drums

Website

http://www.elvenking.net/

Cover Picture

Rating

Music: 7
Sound: 7
Total: 7 / 10

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