The Swiss folk metal innovators Eluveitie have posted the following on the official website:

"Great news we have for you these days! While being busy finishing up the production of "Slania" and working on our "Evocation" concept we still found the time to travel to Donzdorf in Germany for a few beers & a talk with the people of Nuclear Blast Records ([url]www.nuclearblast.de[/url] / [url]www.nuclearblastusa.com[/url])...
Not only did they make us drunk as hell, but they also impressed us with a great artist roster, 20 years of incredible work (happy birthday Nuclear Blast!) and their professional but still very "metal" staff. So we did what had to be done - we came, we saw and we signed. We are looking forward to many years of great work together with one of the world's biggest record companies in metal and are glad to announce that our new full-length record "Slania" will join the legions of legendary albums released by Nuclear Blast at February 15th, 2008!"

The band elaborates on the mentioned "Evocation" concept:
"As we notified good two months ago, we were also working on purely acoustic folk material. This project - originally intended as an MCD only - has grown into something much larger during the writing process, so we are happy and proud to announce that [we] will release one complete full-length album brimmed with mystical Celtic folk music as well as an additional [CD] with some new waves of folk metal!
Both releases - belonging together conceptually - deal with ancient Gaulish mythology. Lyrically the songs dip from the source: diverse ancient Gaulish texts that have been discovered as stone carvings, metal engravings, etc. These two conceptual releases are an in-depth voyage through the Celtic soul [?] and include performances of several renowned guest musicians!"

The acoustic album "Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion" is slated for a release through Nuclear Blast in Winter 2008. The release date of the folk metal album "Evocation II - Visions" is yet to be announced. Some artwork made for the "Evocation" series by the artist Manuel Vargas Lepiz, who has already worked with Mortiis, Fanoe and others, can be viewed here.

Source:	eluveitie.ch
Band profile:	Eluveitie