Ревью альбома "Spirit" от imperiumi.net (Английский язык) (23/08/06)
Although there are many heathen metal bands nowadays, only few of them have the boldness or the ability to sound truly traditional and fresh. Anyway, into this category fall Swiss Eluveitie with their debut album Spirit. This album is full of genuine love for Celtic tradition and everything is crowned with the skill to combine the parts into one functional package.
To say Spirit to be ingenious would be too much, but at least it is an excellent combination of melodic metal mixed with folk music. Although there is some death metal influence in the background, the focus is, smartly, on the folksy heathen metal aspect. The fiddles and whistles play in harmony with the heavy-roaring guitars, and the vocals are not limited to grunts only.
Melodic riffs and the brisk folksiness are the keywords for this album and at the same time the best it has to offer. Without the plentiful piper tune sections, fiddle arrangements and suchlike, the album would probably sound much more uninteresting and unremarkable. The songs are uniformly good all along the line, and there is not a single poor song or not even a cheap song. But on the contrary, in my opinion there was no song that would have been superb compared to others, but this is not a bad thing at any rate.
Concerning the vocals, there are beautiful female vocals to balance the more masculine grunts. Besides bringing delightful variation to the songs, they also fit excellently to the folk-spirited compositions. English is not the only language used and this gives a nice touch of exoticism. Otherwise, the sounds on the album are brilliant. From the guitars to the fiddles, the instruments sound beautiful and clear, and there has been no compromise concerning the heaviness of the sounds, despite the spurious lightness and folksiness.
I do not have much to complain about Spirit, and I can only guess what is the verdict of the listeners who are more excited than me about this genre. However, for a debut album this output is a successful and delightful package of good metal in the spirit of traditional music.
8 / 10 points
Review of Eluveitie's Spirit at www.imperiumi.net by Serpent.
Translated from Finnish into English by Mikko Hglund (Mandrake)