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ILLUMISHADE is a new project featuring a few faces that will be familiar to fans of the folk-metal scene, namely Fabienne Erni and Jonas Wolf from Swiss stalwarts Eluveitie. What began as a project for Fabienne’s masters degree has grown wings and developed into a fully interactive world with endless possibilities.
Listeners/followers can opt to become a part of one of five individual tribes and fully immerse themselves in the ILLUMI concept. Or they can just listen to the music on offer without reading up on the concept. Either way, the music on offer is spellbinding and works just as beautifully as an entire concept album to be devoured in one sitting, as it does as individual tracks that you can dip in and out of.
If you did opt to go with the fully interactive option then you might hear yourself during the first few seconds of opening track ‘Passage Through The Clouds’. The instrumental opener begins with a spoken word section where fans recite the mantra of each tribe and set the scene for the fantasy-filled forty minutes that ‘ECLYPTIC: Wake of Shadows’ runs for. Musical interludes are dotted throughout the album and serve as a gateway to the track that immediately follows on. What follows on from ‘Passage Through The Clouds’ is the heavy riffage, throbbing bass, and pounding drums of ‘The Calling Winds’. The slow, atmospheric skull-crusher is lifted aloft by the soaring vocals from Fabienne Erni and floats along until the galloping ‘Tales Of Time’ kicks in. Featuring the instantly recognisable growls of Eluveitie founder Chrigel Glanzmann, this a perfect example of different genres and tones working in unison to create contrast within the same song. The drum work from Marc Friedrich is staggering and should have the listener breaking out the air-drums.
It can be quite easy to gloss over musical interludes but here they are crucial, especially on ‘The Farewell Arcades’ which knocks the listener for six with some killer, fat bass tones from Yannick Urbanczik and lush orchestrations from the impressive Mirjam Skal. The crunching riffs from Jonas Wolf disturbs the listener from their blissful state as he brings the band in on ‘Crystal Silence’, arguably the track that best sums up the ILLUMISHADE sound. Sitting comfortably in amongst his buzzsaw riffs, is the perfect example of how to blend metal, edm and pop without watering down the end result. Lighter-than-light uplifting vocals, mixed with pop-edm sensibilities and prog metal riffage, easily one of the best earworm moments of the year to date. The cheesy side of Fabienne comes out first on ‘What Have I Become’ (complete with Disney-esque orchestrations and exquisite guitar solos) and then the ultimate ballad; ‘Rise’. The latter being a great example of how a power-ballad should really be done, and top marks to the Ace Frehley-esque rocket launching guitar sound from Wolf at 3.00 minutes.
From the lightness of ‘Rise’ to the darkness of ‘Muse Of Unknown Forces’, where the instrumentation is king. Great bass tone throughout, and Fabienne shows again why she is one of the rising vocalists in metal today, her range and versatility at times staggering. ‘Golden Lands’ is Disney with a killer guitar solo and is hard to resist, as are the closing moments of this album. First up is ‘Beyond The Obsidian Veil’, a frantic few minutes of instrumental heavy-ass prog metal that seeps perfectly into the Dream Theatre-like ‘World’s End’ where each band member takes the chance to shine.
The words “concept album” can put a lot of people off, but as mentioned earlier, ‘ECLYPTIC: Wake of Shadows’ works just as well if tackled on an individual song basis. However, don’t be afraid to dip your toes into the concept album waters, take the interactive quiz to work out what tribe you belong to, #Faevatribe all the way.
Available now, more information here.
Review – Dave
