Band:	Eluveitie
Album:	Spirit
Style:	Celtic folk metal, Gothenburg metal
Release date:	June 2006

01. Spirit
02. Uis Elveti
03. Your Gaulish War
04. Of Fire, Wind & Wisdom
05. Aidû
06. The Song Of Life
07. Tegernakô
08. Siraxta
09. The Dance Of Victory
10. The Endless Knot
11. AnDro

Folk metal has never been a strong contender for the position of the "most popular subgenre”, as the scene is overshadowed due to unoriginality, staleness, and perceptions of being silly or gimmicky. This trend has led to truly exceptional bands in the genre becoming marginalized, and the chief among them is Eluveitie – a Swiss folk metal band from Switzerland, a nonet equivalent to a folk metal Slipknot infused with traditional Gothenburg-styled melodic death metal. This is the band that famously showcased 12 traditional European folk instruments in studio and live and captivated avid fans like me.

With Spirit, Eluveitie combined excellent melodeath compositional techniques with melodic folk instrumentation. The production sounds scabrous and dry as sand, with Eluveitie having just one demo/EP, Vên, in the bag before creating this record. Glanzmann's hunt for a record label was impacting the sound. Unlike their later albums, which took a shift towards a modern metal sound, on Spirit, the flutes, pipes, and hurdy-gurdy take the center stage, carrying most of the melodies and hooks; the guitars, on the other hand, are employed in a "less-is-more" approach, delivering a powerful distorted backdrop and impact. This combination effectively showcases what Eluveitie believes to be a musical incarnation of Helvetian culture.

Across the album's timeline, its ability to grasp the essence of the atmosphere and recreate it without relying on typical ambient keyboard backgrounds or breaks is truly remarkable. The inclusion of Gaulish lyrics adds an extra layer of intrigue, like we witness in first 2 tracks off the start. It possesses a fierce and invigorating vision like in "Your Gaulish War," which makes you charge through forests, battling Roman soldiers carrying flamboyant Gaulish battle standards, but that momentum comes to an abrupt in “Aidu”. As if Eluveitie has blown the horn for the end of the 1st half (battle?) of the album, "Aidu" beautifully leans into the enchanting vocals of Anna Murphy (one of the female vocalists) complemented by tin whistles, uilleann pipes, and the soothing sounds of rushing water in the background. With a 50-minute album length, one might assume that "Aidu" is mere filler only present to validate inclusion of the female operatic warble here, but then Glanzmann and company decided to restrict this to only two tracks, “Aidu” and “Siraxta”. I feel these vocals could have been featured more comprehensively, seeing how folk metal bands in the 2000s were underutilizing female vocals. Apart from that, this record effortlessly delivers a succession of emotionally engaging moments, sheer musical brilliance that not only captivates the listener but also leaves them eager to hear more, despite the album's relatively long duration. By incorporating diverse instruments that contribute to a unique sound, it successfully breaks away from the monotonous tendencies often found in the folk metal scene.

With brilliant releases in 2006 like Negură Bunget’s OM, Suidakra’s Caledonia firing up a melodic death metal scene, and contemporaries like Korpiklaani, along with Melechesh, Týr, Cruachan and Runic releasing good albums around the same time, Eluveitie entered the fray with a lot to prove. However, with so much intensity, grit and talent that these Swiss metallers possess, it leaves me without a shadow of doubt that with Spirit, it was a phenomenal breakthrough into a scene that hadn't yet curated a fantastic blend of trad celtic folk + metal as effectively as Eluveitie did. They championed the art of lovemaking with traditional folk metal instruments, creating a tough benchmark for their future releases.

Highlights: "Uis Elveti", "Tegernakô" and "The Dance Of Victory"