ELUVEITIE REMEMBER HOW TO BE HEAVY AGAIN (THANKFULLY!)

I’ve always thought Eluveitie stood out from the pagan/folk/whatever metal pack because they’re one of the heavier bands of the bunch. Where several of these bands choose to dive deep into their respective country’s folk music and metallicize it, Eluveitie instead opt to folk-ify their metal. Their songs are basically heavy Gothenburg-style melodeath with some folksy instrumentation; combine that with mainman Chrigel Glanzmann’s acute songwriting and you’ve got the reason why Eluveitie remain one of the only folk metal bands that continually pique my interest. In a sea of a whole bunch of very mediocre bands in this uber-specialized micro-genre, Eluveitie stand out.

Their new track “Kingdom Come Undone,” now posted on their MySpace page, is no different; it’s great. Eluveitie are letting the metal world know loud and clear that their 2009 all-acoustic record was just an experiment and that the band we heard on Slania is the real Eluveitie. So far we’ve heard two tracks from Everything Remains (As It Never Was) (out February 19th on Nuclear Blast) and they’ve both been bangers.

-VN