Band:	Eluveitie
Album:	Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion
Style:	Folk
Release date:	April 17, 2009
Guest review by:	flamey

01. Sacrapos - At First Glance [feat. A.A. Nemtheanga]
02. Brictom
03. A Girls Oath
04. The Arcane Dominion [feat. Oli S. Tyr]
05. Within The Grove [feat. Fredy Schnyder & Mina The Fiddler]
06. The Cauldron Of Renascence
07. Nata [feat. A.A. Nemtheanga]
08. Omnos
09. Carnutian Forest
10. Dessumiis Luge
11. Gobanno [feat. Sarah Wauquiez, Fredy Schnyder & Mina The Fiddler]
12. Voveso In Mori
13. Memento
14. Ne Regv Na
15. Sacrapos - The Disparaging Last Gaze
16. Slania [Folk Medley version] [Limited Edition bonus]
17. Omnos [Early Metal version] [Limited Edition bonus]

So here it is, the long anticipated acoustic album of these Swiss folk metallers who had been enjoying a well-deserved success with their last effort Slania. This new album is quite different from other releases of the band. It is the first part of a 2-piece effort, with Evocations II - Visions, set to come out later this year. They decided to make this an entirely acoustic folk album that includes no metal elements at all, so it should be invaluable to all the folk fans out there who don't like death metal elements, right? Well let's see if it lives up to the expectations.

Personally I had quite high expectations on this release, seeing all the guest musicians list and all and being a fan of acoustic AND folk music. But well, I gotta say it disappointed me a little. First of all, Alan Nemtheanga of Primordial contributes to two songs with his voice, but those who expect his epic vocals (that would be me) will be disappointed. In one of them he just reads a text and the other one is just an ordinary performance. Talking about texts, one other problem is all these "transition" songs. There are some songs on the album that don't have any real melody and are just connecting one other song to another, or include parts sung/read in ancient Gaelic. Since I am not an expert on the Gaelic language, I don't understand anything and in the end these transitions just make me bored and want to skip them, instead of drawing me into the atmosphere of the album like they had been intended to do.

These are the downsides of the album. Oh wait, there's one more: Chrigel Glanzmann's annoying "clean" singing. He should just growl and leave everything else to Alan Nemtheanga or Anna Murphy. Anna, who normally plays hurdy gurdy and performs backing vocals, is the main singer on this album. She has a nice voice which usually fits perfectly to songs, although in these "transition" songs, she too, can't save them from being boring.

So the reason why this album deserves a 7.5? Well it's just these damn awesome folk melodies that one can't resist. "Omnos" has one of the catchiest melodies I've heard recently, although the chorus is kinda pop-like and cheesy (and I don't even wanna talk about the video that's been shot for it, it's like a Turkish crappy pop music video), which makes me feel embarrassed that I like it so much, heh. Damn these folk instruments and the godly melodies. The other songs which stand out are, "Brictom", "Carnutian Forest", "The Cauldron of Renascence", "Gobanno" and "Memento". If you are even slightly into folk metal, these are the songs that you should NOT miss on this album, even if you don't hear the rest. Just give these a chance, I'm sure they won't disappoint you.

In the end, I believe it is a good album, although not quite reaching my expectations. It's not an album to listen to from beginning to the end, but there are some songs that stand out and they make the album quite enjoyable. It's the band's first experiment of something like this, a totally acoustic folk album, that being considered it's not bad. However, it's also nowhere near amazing acoustic folk albums like Urminnes Hävd from Månegarm (Especially this album is a MUST have if you're looking for an acoustic folk album to take you back in time and into Nordic lands) and Swordsong from Skyforger. Maybe they should listen to these albums carefully before their next try.