Third chapter for Elvenking.
Three years after their last release, Aydan (guitar/vocals/keyboards), Damna (vocals, Hell in the Club), Lethien (violin), Symohn (drums), Jakob (bass, Moonlight Haze) and HeadMatt (guitar, Chaos Factory) offer Reader of the Runes – Luna, on Reaper Entertainment.
The band’s martial sound and orchestrations can be heard almost immediately on the first track, Season Of The Owl, which features mainly clean vocals to accompany the run, but also transforms into a motivating chorus. Folk Metal roots blend perfectly with the most furious passages, but also with Power Metal’s joie de vivre, as on Luna, which is much brighter and faster than the previous track, giving way to Gone Epoch, where heavy influences come back into play. The violin also remains present in the catchy composition that eventually joins Stormcarrier after a final chorus, giving us two seconds’ respite before attacking again with an effective rhythm, but also Aydan‘s howls that replace and blend with Damna‘s vocals. There’s an element of mystery to Starbath, the next track, but the instrumental remains relatively catchy and this darker tinge remains fairly discreet on the unifying choruses, before returning to haunt On These Haunted Shores and its more straightforward approach, while retaining the motivating patterns on the choruses. The track borrows heavily from Symphonic Metal before a raw final, but The Ghosting quickly takes over to darken the landscape once more, which nonetheless proves quite gentle until its final moments. Throes of Atonement takes over immediately, with its playful riffs and occasional vocal flourishes, and then it’s back to calm on The Weeping, a rather sombre creation that takes on the role of a ballad, albeit with a few more intense moments. The album comes to a close with the eleven-minute Reader of the Runes – Book II, a sort of high point in terms of epic sounds and the band’s blend of majestic influences, which eventually become more violent during the solo before the final.
Elvenking have used the teachings of the runes to turn their album into a truly epic work, with sharp, motivating riffs. Reader of the Runes – Luna completes the band’s legacy and will easily allow them to unite their audience!
80/100
A few questions to Elvenking’s founder and guitarist Aydan for the release of their twelfth album, Reader of the Runes – Luna.
Hello and first of all, thank you very much for your time! How would you introduce the band Elvenking without using the words “Power Metal” or “Folk Metal”?
Aydan: That is a good question. We use to define ourselves as a Pagan Metal act, for the fact that this description does not include any specific reference to the type of music we are playing. It has always been very difficult for us to describe our genre. I believe that the reason for this is that the influences we put on the table to craft the Elvenking sound since day 1 were so various: from the power metal of the 90s to all the Gothenburg Death Metal scene, from Black Metal to the obscure sounds of acts like King Diamond, Mercyful Fate or Candlemass, with Skyclad still as the main reference for our primitive sound.
The band will soon release its new album Reader of the Runes – Luna, which is the third one with the name “Reader of the Runes”, how do you feel about it?
Aydan: We use to say that the right word could be relieved. We are working non-stop on this huge project since 2018 so we embarked on a very long journey and we probably did not expect it to be so demanding. So we are so happy to have finally arrived at the final chapter of this adventure.
What can you tell me about the new album Reader of the Runes – Luna? About the creation process, continuity with the two previous ones, and maybe the artwork.
Aydan: The particular thing is that we were supposed to write and record the 3 albums of the trilogy the standard way, writing and recording the first album, going on tour supporting it, then proceeding with writing and recording the second and so on. As soon as we were completing the first part of the tour for the Divination album, we were on the bus with Brother of Metal and I remember receiving first information about a strange virus coming from China. COVID-19 struck the world and all band activities for the next months (and then years) were completely cancelled. The only thing left to do at the point was going into songwriting, and once it was clear the situation would not get better soon we decided to proceed with the songwriting also for the third chapter. Basically we wrote Rapture and Luna in a single long session. The artwork is once again by amazing artist Zsofia Dankova that worked on all the 3 covers and once again she has been able to put into art all our visual ideas.
How would you sum Reader of the Runes – Luna’s identity up in only three words?
Aydan: Fast, epic, tragic
The band’s sound is of course anchored in a Folk and Power Metal basis, but how do you create your own touch? Are there any new influences with time?
Aydan: I would not say we do have new influences. It would also be pretty difficult since we are closely attached to the Metal of the 80s and 90s and personally I do not follow a lot nowadays scene and would be really difficult to be influenced by that. Let’s say we have built up our sound through the years and especially in the first phase of our formation we had the clear goal to create our own personal sound and I believe that nowadays you can clearly say this is Elvenking once you hear one of our songs. We had so many inputs when we formed the band since we were fans of Power Metal, of the Gothenburg Death Metal scene, of Black Metal and beyond. Still at the time (we formed the band in 1997) the term Folk Metal and the scene was not existing at all and we wanted to create something mixing the lesson of the British masters Skyclad with our other influences and there we crafted the Elvenking sound.
Do you have a favorite song on this album? Or maybe the hardest one to achieve for the album.
Aydan: For sure, I would name the closing track Reader of the Runes – Book II as the most ambitious one and the most complicated to write. It is a 11 minutes long song where all our sound facets are there, from the fast stuff to the obscure, dark one, from the acoustic Folky material to the Black Metal blast beats. We wanted the most epic episode possible to close not only the album but the whole trilogy so we worked a lot on the song to obtain the best result possible. And I think we succeeded.
Do you think you improved yourself as a musician/songwriter with this new record? Did you notice changes with the creation process?
Aydan: I really believe every single album and songwriting session is a huge occasion to grow up as a musician and songwriter. Every songwriting session is a step ahead compared to the previous one and the same thing goes for recording sessions. We cannot say there were any kind of changes compared to the previous album Rapture because that album and Luna have been written and partially recorded in the same session, but for sure I feel that these 2 albums have brought Elvenking to the next level in terms of productions, sound, arrangements and capacity to manage the whole process.
The band of course played a lot of concerts all around the world, so how do you get prepared for a concert? Do you have some kind of pre-show routine?
Aydan: Our pre show routine is basically around getting dressed and doing the makeup, which needs some time to be done properly. We know that at least half an hour before the show we need to regroup in the backstage all together. During the process, we try to discuss about the night setlist, special things to do on stage etc.
What is coming next for Elvenking? Do you plan some new videos, concerts after the release of Reader of the Runes – Luna?
Aydan: We have done a long tour just before the release of the album where we have presented new material playing the 2 singles released at the time. We are now relaxing a bit before returning on stage after the release of the album. Next summer will be pretty crowded with European festivals. We will probably return to Japan during the Fall and we have lots of other touring plans in the pipeline.
That was the last question for me, so thank you very much for your time and your music, last words are yours!
Aydan: Thanks to you for the nice interviews. I really hope there are still listeners out there willing to follow a complicated concept story as the Reader of the Runes one, following the albums form the first to the last note, trying to understand the lyrics and the story – as we used to do back in the 90s when we were young kids.