JANUARY 25th, 2025
ELUVEITIE
Review by Dmitry Sukhinin
Photos by Polina Kulikovskikh
Photo Gallery: http://www.metaltitans.com/concertpics/eluveitie/

An evening of swiss metal with Eluveitie and Ad Infinitum in mighty Rockefeller.

Ad Infinitum was the first warm-up I’ve ever seen to have such a big production - it was just striking. These lights! The pop intro that would fit Linkin Park, and then the band is onstage supported by their light stands. Headless guitar with fanned frets to the left, drummer on the back - to the right, bassist on the right and vocals in the middle. This was the evening of great lady vocals - not a single weak spot with both bands. Despite the great stage presence, unfortunately, the mix did not do the band much justice - it was extremely thin. Click kick-drum with no pinch, almost no bass, no lows on the guitar, but great vocals and fantastic solos!

Ad Infinitum uses a back track, so sometimes I struggled to understand what is played live, and what is on the recording, - but this is not something negative. It just says that the balance of the live instruments was done nicely and it had a good fit with the backs. Still, I would put the backing tracks lower. And please put more bass next time. The vocals - quite diverse, cleans that hit notes effortlessly and heavy growls. The guitar needs some punch/compression on the low-ends, since the djenty moments were not too audible, but these solos! The solos are very tasty! Adrian Theßenvitz is for sure very skilled - bends and the tremolo use - it was a real pleasure, when he was on with the soloing.

There is a definite inspiration from Sybreed with the rhythms and kicks. But every time I was focusing on what the bassist plays - it was never supporting the rhythm. Bass and kicks play different rhythms not supporting each other - with the intricate kicks the bass was just playing straight, and this is probably the best reason to put the bass as low in the mix as possible.
“The next song requires everyone to jump” - the whole Rockefeller venue jumps and the floor is shaking. The audience embraces the band during this one hour set.  

You realize things are about to get serious when Eluveitie bring all kinds of bizarre things onstage. Harp, dombra, gusli (?) and multiple stands with some alien things.

One immediately sees that they are very much loved here. The mix is great - huge drums, big sound, and absolutely piercing female vocals. “Flute” and violin are very prominent, and suddenly for me the whistles (not a flute) man starts delivering growling vocals. The world has many beautiful instruments and apparently Chrigel Glanzmann could not choose so he decided to play all of them in addition to doing vocals. I try to count all the instruments that are used throughout the set, - but I have to give up. They use just all of the possible ones, and I can hear every instrument in the mix.

Eluveitie give the public very high-spirited lively folk grooves, this is why they will be back again later this year. “You wanna hear something new?”, - and the new stuff is groover!! Then come the blastbeats!

It is interesting to see such a niche so big. Eluveitie is heavier than the folk you would expect when you read “folk”, - it has both the wild frenzy and brutality. The main female vocalist Fabienne Erni is a sorceress. Well, ok, everyone of them is. But then there is a moment, when Fabienne is alone onstage - back track and only herself singing with all the lights pointing at her, - and it is shivers.

A very interesting experience for those who are into different musical worlds.