I Will Rock You Episode 5: Eluveitie.

Hello Charlie, how are you doing?

So far I've talked about Vikings, Werwolves, Pirates... (this sounds like the title for the next What The Cut), but I haven't talk about one thing: Celtic warriors. And this is precisely what I'm going to do today! So Charlie, today I present you Eluveitie!

In term of originality, Eluveitie is quite something, trust me.

So, Eluveitie is a Swiss band of Power, Pagan and Flok Metal. To put it in a nutshell: it's a band that does folk with electric guitars, drums and bass guitar, and who talks about pagan stories or celtic mythology. That being said, the story of Eluveitie is not that original (I promise you Charlie that I will talk about at least one band with an interesting story in the future)... But it's important to notice that many diffrent people were part of the band: today there are 8 people in it, but if we count all the former members, this band had a total of 25 diffrent persons in it, which is A LOT!

For once I want to do a little aside, I want to talk about Eluveitie's style. This is going to be purely subjective, but I find the esthetic of the band quite particular. Even though nowadays the mix of culture between celtic and metal is well implanted, I always found intriguing the way that metal culture can "adopt" so many styles. And Eluveitie is one of the best example: these guys (and girls) are wearing traditional celtic clothes but they play Metal music, and to me this is just awesome to see that it can go from rapers to traditional celtic (I'm saying this word too many times...) culture, Metal can unite everyone, because it's music!

SO! Let's move on to the music! Now you can guess from the previous articles, I like weird and original stuff, and damn, Eluveitie IS original! Apart from being quite numerous, they have a unique composition: the classic trio (bass, guitars (x2) and drums), but also: a flute, an Irish bouzouki, a violin, a hurdy gurdy and god damn bagpipes!

Yes, these guys are trully unique, and with this composition they can do slow and relaxing music with the nice voice of one of the two women in the band... or something absolutely epic with gutural sing. Also, the band has 3 singers: 2 women (Nicole Ansperger and Anna Murphy that are doing clear sing) and 1 man (Chrigel Glanzmann, the only member of the band that was here since the begning and sing in a gutural style). I have to admit that this combination is surprising, but something makes it even more beautiful: even though the majority of their songs is in English, some are in Helevetian, a language spoken by the celtic tribes that lived in Switzerland long ago. And if PowerWolf were trying to give a better impression by using latin in their songs, Eluveitie brings so much epicness in their music thanks to that.

I won't bother you anymore, so here are my favourite songs from them :).

Inis Mona is their most famous song, and I'm sure the melody will ring a bell to most of you ;)

Uis Elveti is sung in Helvetian and certainly one of the most symbolic song from them.

Anagantios is the kind of song that you can listen to before going to sleep or just

relaxing, it's pure traditional celtic music ;).

The Somber Lay is a pure example of Celtic Metal, it's particular but I personally love it.

That's all for today Charlie, I hope I could share my passion of Celtic and Metal music with you.

Next time, I'll talk about the "geekiest" band I know.

See ya and stay Rock! \m/(>.<)\m/

Kellian