ELVENKING – The Scythe

Like Paris Hilton might say, “This is HOT.” Pardon Ms. Hilton (you’re a ‘#*’!), and this is hotter than hot — extraordinarily hot!!!

Elvenking from Italy combine Folk, Hard Rock, and Heavy Metal like it hasn’t been put together before. Skyclad melded Folk and Metal and they had their time — some years ago. But, the future days belong to Elvenking. Hail ’em, praise ’em!

The Scythe Whields its edge with uncompromising hardness, but its attitude is silky soft at the same time. Scorching fast-paced and heavenly slow-traced, all-in-one-package. Every song abducts you to another story. All of the compositions are stories about “The Death.” Some of them are like an unconscious dream steering into the light at the tunnel, some of them are scaring to the bone and some are both of it. None of these songs give you that certain feeling that you have heard this from another band before. Elvenking manage to put a catchy chorus into every song, without being Thrashy or Poppy. The bandwidth of the Elvenking’s sound is enormous: Many different instruments and musical features (violin, female voice, piano, grunting, and a lot more) have their guest appearance, without being overused or fighting for one another’s space.

Have you ever been banging and dancing at the same time? Well, all the arrangements are filled with musical surprises, acoustic guitars are taken over by blasting drums and riffing while a violin is singing a song so sad, your skin begins to prickle. The attitude smoothly changes from Thrash-, to Power-, to Folk-, or Death Metal. A combination of Blind Guardian, In Flames, already mentioned Skyclad, and The Dogma. Plus, the Keyboard sounds create a futuristic and yet unexperienced fantastic atmosphere. Like the lyrics say: “Death is a savior – life is a whore” – without this album for sure guys!!!

The Scythe also profit from tip-top production quality. All in all, the sound is dense, but not overmatching the ability of your stereo. Not a surprise because The Scythe was mastered by Mikka Jussila at the Finnvox studios in Heslinki, Finland. Label AFM obviously took good care of this band! Turn it up ’til your neighbors think of stories about your “unexpected” decease … harrrharrrr!

The But(t)

C’mon man, there is none!

Lineup

Damnagoras – vocals
Elyghane – violin
Aydan – guitars & backing vocals
Gorlan – bass
Zender – drums