Band:	Elvenking
Album:	Red Silent Tides
Style:	Folk metal, Power metal
Release date:	September 17, 2010
Guest review by:	R Lewis

Disc I
01. Dawnmelting
02. The Last Hour
03. Silence De Mort
04. The Cabal
05. Runereader
06. Possession
07. Your Heroes Are Dead
08. Those Days
09. This Nightmare Will Never End
10. What's Left Of Me
11. The Play Of The Leaves
12. Skywards [2008 version] [Japanese bonus]

Disc II [Digipack Bonus: To Oak Woods Bestowed Demo]
01. To Oak Woods Bestowed
02. White Willow
03. Banquet Of Bards
04. Oakenshield
05. Under The Tree Of Us'dum

After the disappointing The Scyte and the encouraging but not memorable Two Tragedy Poets (...And A Caravan Of Weird Figures) the folk power metal scene was expecting a continuation in Elvenking's return to their original quality. It hasn't come.

Red Silent Tides was gifted me by my classmates for my 16th birthday, and I went mad with joy: in fact, at the time I had only listened to the great Heathenreel and Wyrd, and I was not aware of the Italian band's recent decay.

Putting the CD in the stereo has been quite a shock: the opening track is usually the best - or one of the best - of the album, but "Dawnmelting", frankly, sucks. A whining love song is not what you're expecting from a folk power band, at least not as an opener. Luckily, this album doesn't follow the traditional rules and "Dawnmelting" is the worst track of the album.

Red Silent Tides in its totality isn't a bad album. Elvenking has maintained the songwriting talent highlighted in the first two album, but seems to have lost part of the initial strength and, above all, the folky tunes which made them emerge from the metal scene. In fact they lack in all the album, except from some, rare, moments ("Runereader", for example), leaving space to more quiet, poppy and "bourgeois" melodies.

While, except from some excellent solos, the album is musically slightly above average, the things I really love are the lyrics. Damna and Aydan show once again to be able to express human emotions with such evocative words that I feared my heart was exposed to the world. The song that best represents this aspect of the album is the introspective "This Nightmare Will Never End".

Overall, this album in not good enough to honor the memory of the debut releases, but has enough inspiration to keep the band on a good level of quality (and, since I have the power to see into the future, I know that Era is a damn good album, so I'm not worried anymore for the band's future).

Highlights: "The Cabal", "Runereader", "Your Heroes Are Dead", "This Nightmare Will Never End"