We... the Enlightened

WHen you think of sympho black, you think Dimmu or any other soundalike band. But The Elysian Fields bring something different to the table. Granted the efforts of Dimmu and the rest arent poor releases, they just get pretty old, very fast.

The Elysian Fields seem to change thier sound every cd without changing the fundementals upon which the band was built. That would be mostly black, with sympho as a secondary element.

This is their top release if you like it a bit more raw, rather than a great production. The sheer rawness of We... The Enlightened makes it a great release. The melancholy feel of the album, the grimness, hell even the seemingly triumphent beauty of some passages is noteworthy, and listen worthy.

The three best tracks are I Am The Unknown Sky, because they tone it down, and make it a track which you wouldnt expect from this type of band. A great keyboard passage is played throughout and the guitar attack is hypnotizing. The vocalist is very articulate to, even though he has a black metal growl. Its very nice to hear the actual words.

The End Shall be Tragically Fufilled is the most black metal album on the track atmospherewise. Id like to say it has a real Transylvanian feel. As if you were in the The Dark Lords stone castle yourself. Really good tone setter, to bad it towards the end of the cd

And the opening track Their Blood Be On Us, only because its decieving. Makes you think its a basic black metal album. But they quickly dismiss that with a very well done opener. This band takes time to release cd's and it shows. The way they have progressed is very rare these days. Kudos to the band for making a great cd.

The Elysian Fields have on of the most original sounds i've heard.

Their Blood be on us starts off with pounding black metal, and some good vocals here. After a few tempo changes, in comes a violin accompanied by a more mellow black metal passage. The song continues to become more mellow, leaving the black metal shell, still being accompanied by a violin. Great song here, highly recomended.

The next track, I am the Unknown Sky, starts off with a with some piano/acoustic guitars action, good combination. In come the the distortion guitars, with pianos still going on. This is very doomy, much like My Dying Bride, though the guitar part here is a bit cliched, it's still quite good. The solo in this song, fits very well with this song, accompanied by pianos, keyboards and guitars. Another great song.

Until the night cries rise in your heart Starts off a bit slow, but picks up quickly into some nice black metal with a flute solo over it. This song also includes some odd synth riffs, and some awesome drumming. This song is high energy, and awesome music. The song towards the end, comes into more of a doomy state, with some spooky pianos going on in the background, great combination. The ending of this song, is alot like Arcturus in many ways, very odd. I love it. Great song.

...And the Everdawn Faded away starts with a cool little clip of the forest in a storm, before coming into some traditional heavy metal riffs along with some violin action. There are some cool melodies and harmony parts in this song, especially towards the end. A solid track.

Shall they come forth unto this is high energy black metal from the very beginning, fast vocals and good drumming. There is an awesome violin solo among the black metal, great stuff. Then comes some awesome harmony parts, which is interrupted by an interesting violin solo part, the song then proceeds to get folky. Acoustic guitars, violin is what stands out the most, the song then goes into Doom metal mode. The song ends on full-on black metal mode. Awesome track, probably my favorite.

Arcaena Celestia Starts off with with the sound of burning wood, along with some spoken words. The riff that comes in here is alright, i'm not a big fan of it. Though some of the lead riffs in this song are pretty cool, i usually skip this song.

The end will tragically be fullfilled starts off with some growling and some interesting riffage going on, making for an odd but cool combination. The riffs in this song are pretty cool, some good lead tremelo picking. The violin is not spared in this song, it's used very well, giving this song an epic feel about three quarters of the way through. The ending is very fast paced, it's just keyboards, pianos, and a violin solo. The drums are very soft, but good nonetheless, this part is very interesting, though quite eerie and spooky it's very good. Awesome track.

The Last star of Heaven Falls starts off with the sound of wind blowing, the in comes some sad piano parts. Soon bass and drums are added to the piano, very doomy here. About midway through the song the guitars come in, just for a solo though, it's quite slow but perfect in the sense of the song. Soon a choir comes in, adding just another dimension to this song. Great song, one of my favorites.

Wither, Oh Divine, Wither starts off kind of slow, though it's got the definitive tremelo picking lead that is a constant throughout this album. It's got some pretty cool riffs going for it, along with the lead part. About midway through, the song gets folky with some acoustic guitars and violin which is interrupted with some heavy guitars and a guitar solo/lead part, i think they could have done without this part, but it causes no harm. This song then shifts back to folk music, good stuff here. The song ends with some good lead work and tremelo picking. Solid track here.

This album, though relatively unknown, combines elements of folk, symphonic, black/death metal all into one album known as 'We...The Enlightened.' The musicianship is excellent here, not one element of this album is spared.
4/5 from me.