Eye Of Melian: Bound by Fantasy
“I think the world is getting darker,” says Martijn Westerholt, EYE OF MELIAN’s keyboardist and orchestral arranger. “Art is extremely important. It shows us who we are. A beautiful part of who we are as humans.”
The band’s singer and violinist, Johanna Kurkela, echoes this. “Life is miraculous. We’re here to experience a wild adventure that we get to write for ourselves. It’s such a gift. Fantasy can help us stay tapped into the possibilities and the magic we cannot yet see, but we know are out there.”
EYE OF MELIAN exist on the border of metal. These are riff-free lands. Their “movie score music with vocals” compositions – how Westerholt sums up the band’s records – draw inspiration from Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, and the works of Tolkien. If metal traditionally evokes the Battle of Helm’s Deep, EYE OF MELIAN glide among the elves and forests of Lothlórien. Even the band’s name comes from a powerful being in Middle-Earth.
Their second album, Forest Of Forgetting, is first and foremost a fantasy record. Its songs sound forged in dreams. You might imagine them sung as stories around a campfire or imbued with the bombast of a full orchestra in a grand concert hall. It is an album in search of some great ‘other’ where fiction and folklore provide a comforting alternative to today’s troubled times. Westerholt hopes these songs will “open doors for people to escape the mundane and enjoy a little bit of magic, for a moment”.
This love of storytelling began young. Kurkela remembers her grandmother reading stories to her before she could read well herself. “I have such dear memories of those times,” she says. “I remember I had imaginary friends, and being told stories had a huge impact on my imagination. That was my whole life.” Westerholt believes the same is true for everyone else in the band too, crediting each member’s history with storytelling as the reason they connect creatively. “The stories we grew up with have shaped us into making this music right now.”
The band are all metalheads, but as Kurkela sees it, fantasy is almost a genre unto itself. “I feel like in the metal community there is the propensity to be inclined to like The Lord of the Rings movies and fantasy worlds. It’s kind of in our blood somehow, to like that sort of thing. EYE OF MELIAN’s music is just another world that connects us as a community.” On a trip to Comic-Con, Westerholt recalls the sea of metal t-shirts he saw being worn, intersecting with fantasy culture. Both he and Kurkela are massive fans of the wintery dragon-infested lands of Skyrim.
Lines can be drawn between EYE OF MELIAN and the likes of DELAIN (Westerholt), AURI (Kurkela), and NIGHTWISH (Troy Donockley guests on Forest of Forgetting). What these acts have in common, apart from a shared adoration of the fantastical, are deeply devoted fanbases. Westerholt believes the magical vibe the bands share resonates with ‘kindred spirits’, while Kurkela says that very same magic connects our hearts to the people around us.
Our conversation returns repeatedly to the ways music can bring people together. Kurkela describes making music in the band like being little kids again, playing around and enjoying the process. By spiritually returning to a simpler time in her life, she feels able to open up to her bandmates, and hopes listeners open their hearts in return. She feels the worries of the world hide our “peace and serenity” from us, but if we are able to tap into them, “what remains is deep connection and presence”.
Westerholt thinks of it as enjoying the little things in life, taken from advice his grandmother gave him. If the world is getting darker, then art is where the light comes in. Kurkela concurs. “If you allow worrisome news, which is everywhere, to pile up in your head, you are going to start to look at your reality and your opportunities differently than if you surround yourself with uplifting things and try to hold on to that childlike joy. Possibilities keep you alive and tapped into the potential each of us hold inside. It’s really important to be able to experience that through music.”
So while the band is completed by two walking Lord of the Rings encyclopaedias – lyricist, violinist and vocalist Robin La Joy and arranger Mikko P Mustonen on keys – EYE OF MELIAN take a step back from the specificities of Tolkien lore to find profound vulnerability in the expression of our imaginations. In composing the music, Westerholt feels himself float away. DELAIN, he says, is a “wonderful struggle” while EYE OF MELIAN is a “safe harbour”. His time there is relaxing and therapeutic. The band perform in mostly seated venues where they can see the audience closing their eyes and going on their own introspective journeys, letting the music take them somewhere else.
In going with the music, Kurkela says, you feel able to imagine what could be instead of what is. The power of EYE OF MELIAN’s music rises to match the power of their listeners’ imaginations. If the world is getting darker, then it makes perfect sense to take on the role of author and write something new for yourself.
“I’m a huge fan of Lady Galadriel. She’s my idol,” says Kurkela. “I’m able to channel my inner elf, and the strength and grace from that has been very empowering to me. I hope that is something that can translate through the music to other people’s lives.”
Forest of Forgetting is set for release on February 20th, 2026 via Napalm Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS128 here:
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