ALBUM REVIEW: Ànv – Eluveitie

That ELUVEITIE have stayed faithful and true to their formative blueprint over 20-plus years could be considered a crutch. The sub-genre they operate in – folk metal – has its limitations, as all sub-genres do. This is a double-edged sword: fans come looking for and typically find well-trodden tropes from the scene, but artists are hemmed in by its framework. Lots of bands more than two decades-deep into a career, especially ones that have stayed within certain creative lines, are inevitably met with diminishing returns. They might come out the gate with all guns blazing – or fiddles fiddling – on their debut, but by album number nine, which is where we find ELUVEITIE, it is all just more of the same (all while an excuse to hit the road again and play the classics).

There’s a little truth to that notion here. ELUVEITIE are not reinventing the wheel with Ànv. The band’s trademark blend of Celtic tunefulness and melodic death metal riffs is present and accounted for, as is the veritable toy box of instrumentation. The band welcome Lea-Sophie Fischer to the fold on violin, while the others chip in with bagpipes, whistles, mandola, harp and a bodhrán.

But Ànv is disarming. Despite all the familiar beats, despite everything here being as expected, this is a remarkably good record. There’s a metallic urgency to Taranoías from the off that dispels any concerns of cobwebs following the band’s longest gap between records to date. Six years is a long time in ELUVEITIE’s world (their first five records were released 2006-2012); if they feel they have something to prove, prove it they do. The Prodigal Ones is as picture perfect a folk metal song as you are likely to hear all year, deftly weaving accessible melodies around a pummelling foundation, as if to say ‘don’t worry, we still got this’.

This feeling of ELUVEITIE as a safe pair of hands permeates Ànv. When fiddles join Premonition’s aural assault, it makes sense; the band understand the primal elements inherent in their influences and combine them, elevating them. Ànv works because you believe the band are students of folk as much as metal. It’s how Premonition can follow the new-age title track, which is helmed by Fabienne Erni putting in a vocal clinic that would earn a standing ovation at Celtic Connections, and it all fits. Then it’s on to Awen, updating A Rose For Epona’s formula for the 2020s in what is sure to be a new setlist staple.

With Ànv, band leader Chrigel Glanzmann has assembled and cemented what might be the definitive version of the band. There is power and knowledge behind the music on display here and how it has been presented, expertly sequenced in a way that dials the intensity up and down at all the right moments.

That its quality comes as a surprise is no slight to ELUVEITIE who pride themselves on creative satisfaction. It’s that over twenty years into a career in folk metal, on album number nine, they still manage to sound so euphorically alive. Ànv is a collection of songs fit for a band at the top of their game. After the longest break between records in their career, ELUVEITIE reassert they they are the leaders of the pack.

Rating: 8/10

Ànv is set for release on April 25th via Nuclear Blast Records.

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