VINLAND SAGA

By: Randall D. Larson
Review Date: Friday, August 12, 2005

The second album by the German/Norwegian band Leaves' Eyes, Vinland Saga, is a concept record that conveys the listener through Scandinavian history as it tells the story of Norwegian explorer Leif Erikson and his crew, who set off by boat to visit his father in Greenland but instead, beset by severe ocean storms, drifted off course and wound up landing in America, the first known Europeans to do so. The album, like many in the expressive progressive and gothic metal genres, is at its heart a storytelling experience; in this case a history lesson, delineated with as much intense clarity and elegance as the stunningly beautiful Norse landscapes that are depicted inside the CD's booklet.

The music is varied but constantly interesting and provocative moving from hard-driving, operatic styled progressive or gothic metal to Celtic-styled ballads, dominated by the lovely voice of lyricist Liv Kristine (with the occasional growling vocals from husband Alexander Krull that, for some, marred the beauty of the band's flowing music more on this later). The contrast between the band's crunching, driving guitars and Kristine's pristine, soaring voice is striking.

Added to the basic story of Erikson's journey is a fictional love story that heightens the drama and creates a little more pathos in the artistic telling of it. "My own fictional story starts here," Liv Kristine (former vocalist of Theater of Tragedy) has said of her romantic enhancement to the Vinland Saga, "because I just thought there are so many men in this history, we need at least one female." The songs become the thoughts from one to the other that flow throughout the expedition's tale of adventure and discovery.

Vinland Saga opens orchestrally, with atmospherically sampled strings providing a very cinematic introduction for the story's epic saga, reducing slightly to accommodate Liv Kristine's soft elegant voice as she introduces the title track and sets the stage for the drama to follow ("1000 years ago a Viking ship left Norway in the spring.... The new world they found they called Vinland, the Land of Wine..."). The old-fashioned melody and timpani-based rhythm provides a strong aura of antiquity

"Farewell Proud Men" introduces the proper sound of the band, with its stridently thrashing undercurrent of guitars, keyboards, and drums, over which Liv's airy voice soars wonderfully. "Elegy" is the album's first single, a very powerful rhythmic melody very much in keeping with the style of such bands as Within Temptation, After Forever, and Nightwish (the song also appears on a video clip included on the CD). "Leaves Eyes" is a poignant ballad, beautifully sung by Liv and setting the band's own name amidst the chronicle as the song dramatizes the concept of the awareness of nature to events that transpire within and around it, as Liv's character sings of love to a listening landscape of natural things. "Misseri (Turn Green Meadows into Grey)" is a magnificent, anthemic track, conveyed with an increasingly powerful intensity.

"Amhran (Song of the Winds") is a gorgeously lyrical instrumental, Liv's voice carried wordlessly through an acoustic pattern of antiquated textures and melodies, her voice set against itself with delicate harmonies. Deep chorale atmospheres introduce "New Found Land," which opens into an expressive landscape of rhythm. Again the choruses are powerful, dramatic, and anthemic; driven by loud and pounding percussion, Liv's angelic soprano soars out over the boats and the sails and the oarsmen and the crashing waves to light a fire above the flashing green landscape the explorers have discovered. Alexander's spoken voice echoes Liv's sentiment, and a New Found Land is depicted with a passionate musical poetry. "Mourning Tree" is a pretty paean to romance, Liv's character confiding her love for Lief in a private moment with a favored tree (whose leaves' eyes must certainly hear and respond to her?) "Twilight Sun" is a crunching and harshly melodic resolution to the band's journey, bidding adieu to the new land as they prepare to return home, with "Ankomst" providing a gentle and expressive denouement, set upon a wavelike undulation of synth and a compelling pattern of luxuriant guitar riffing, over which Liv sings poignantly in Norwegian.

The rhythmic guitarwork in "The Thorn" contrasts beautifully with Liv's singing, the atmospheric keyboard undercurrents, and the driving percussive hammering that goads the rhythm upward and onward. There aren't a lot of extended instrumental solos on Vinland Saga; the thrust is more toward a concentrated effort of all band members to provide a continually integrated musical experience; conveying a dramatic story is determined to be more important than moments of individual virtuosity.

As with several tracks on the band's previous album, Lovelorn, the compelling beauty of its music is marred by the guttural roaring vocals of Alexander Krull in "Solemn Sea" and "The Thorn." (And here's where I admit my prejudice against the kind of death metal growling roars that have become so popular in most gothic metal bands: For my taste, this kind of demonic vocalism, resembling so much a raging, singing Uruk Hai, is so unmusical and grotesquely unattractive that it fails to offer the intended dramatic contrast to the fluid soprano voice of a singer like Kristine. The contrast between the deep, masculine thrashing guitars and the airy feminine vocals provides an appropriately effective and dramatic dynamic, which is only torn apart when that hated roaring vocal intrudes on the purity and smoothness of the music. But, again, this is just one listener's opinions and obviously the trend suggests enough listener's approve of the style). That said, the use of Alexander's Uruk Hai vocalisms is spare on this album, and can be tolerated for those who don't care for it, because the overall intensity and grandeur of the music, and the dramatic saga it delineates, remains charismatically enthralling. For those who love the contrast between guttural roar and delicate soprano, those brutish moments will offer a distinctive strength.

A limited edition digipack is also available, containing two bonus tracks (a new song entitled "Heal" and a new version of "For Amelie" from Lovelorn; plus the "Elegy" video clip, and an interview and making-of video media. Also in release is a 6-track EP entitled Elegy, which features single and album versions of that song, a demo version of "Solemn Sea," and three non-album tracks, one of which features prominent roaring from Alexander.

With two albums in release now, Leaves Eyes is finding a prominent place in the current trend of female-fronted gothic metal bands. A well-integrated musicianship, captivating musical storytelling, and compelling songwriting raises Leaves Eyes far above the routine. Vinland Saga is a broad, ambitious album that succeeds both as a musical interpretation of a vast and dramatic story, and as a splendid piece of music in its own right.

http://www.leaveseyes.de