Cellar Darling – This is the sound

Last year Eluveitie suffered a major rift resulting in the departure of Anna Murphy, Merlin Sutter and Ivo Henzi. After their departure they decided they wanted to continue working together and formed Cellar Darling (which takes it’s name from the solo album released by Anna Murphy a few years ago).

I was lucky enough to see one of their first live performances when they supported Anneke van Giersbergen in Amsterdam in December and loved their set, so I’ve been looking forward to hearing the album. Now I’ve hward it, it’s even better than I’d hoped.

There’s a more mellow sound than Elveitie, so compared to most folk metal, this is certainly lighter and more mellow. It’s still got enough heaviness to keep Elveitie fans interested but the more mellow approach means that the folk elements and instruments such as the hurdy gurdy get more room to shine. That’s not to say that it’s moved too far towards folk – that’s certainly not the case as they’ve still got plenty of metal here and I think they’ve found a perfect mix of folk and metal that gives them a distinctive sound.
There’s also more variety in the styles played on the album which I really liked.

It’s nice to see that they’ve chosen to stick with just Anna Murphy on lead vocals and resisted the temptation to do what so many bands with a female singer do – add some harsh male growls to go with them. It can work well but I think it’s been overdone in recent years.

Check out the video for the first single, Avalanche and hear for yourself what to expect from the album.

Track listing:

1. Avalanche
2. Black moon
3. Challenge
4. Hullaballoo
5. Six days
6. The hermit
7. Water
8. Fire, water & earth
9. Rebels
10. Under the oak tree…
11. …High above these crowns
12. Starcrusher
13. Hedonia
14. Redemption
Bonus tracks
15. The cold song
16. Mad world (Tears for fears cover)
17. The prophet’s song (Queen cover)