Eluveitie: Everything Remains As It Never Was (2010)

I picked up Eluveitie's latest, Everything Remains As It Never Was, and even though it's no Slania, it's still a great album.

These Swiss have what I consider the best approach to the folk metal genre of anyone out there: They combine the pipes and strings with melodic death metal. It's a perfect fit, never sounding gimmicky or awkward, but instead blending perfectly into a cohesive style.

The album both starts and ends on mellow acoustic tracks, and has a good distribution of good and great songs in between. As I said, the album is great, but it seems to be lacking that spark the band had two years ago. At its root, it seems the only problem is they haven't stepped out of their comfort zone, even having recorded the all-acoustic Evocation I: The Arcane Dominion a year earlier. Maybe the members need to explore other musical pursuits for a while and then come back--that strategy often works. They have recorded a new album in each of the last three years, and appear to be planning to release another one next year, so they may be burned out.

The Verdict: Despite their failure to innovate (beyond what they've done on previous albums), I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. The best tracks are the title track and "Quoth the Raven."