ELVENKING
Reader Of The Runes - Luna
Reaper Entertainment
Italy's "fantasy metal wizards" ELVENKING bring the Reader Of The Runes trilogy to a close in fittingly fantastical fashion with the Luna installment. Capped by the 11-minute grand finale "Reader of the Runes - Book II", the album ties together the narrative threads that were woven through the first two parts - 2019's Divination and 2023's Rapture - and, for those who have been following along, reveals the saga's myriad mysteries, including who the namesake "Reader Of The Runes" actually is. Sorry, no spoilers here.
Yet for those who could care less about the storyline and are only interested in the veteran band for its multi-faceted metal approach, Luna serves another heaping helping of the thrash/power/folk/pagan/Celtic/occasionally orchestral extravagance ELVENKING has been honing to perfection since 2010's Red Silent Tides righted the ship after some earlier stylistic blundering. Especially over this trilogy, the sextet has found the sweet spot between groove and aggression, grandiosity, melodicism, whimsy, and sheer audacity - no easy task, even after 11 albums.
As with parts 1 and 2, Luna rarely ever feels like a "concept" album, unless you read along with the lyrics. Sure, it builds to a monumental conclusion, but Luna again omits the intros, segues, narration, repeating musical motifs and other obvious plot devices as the band instead gives each song space to breathe rather than smothering them with overwrought thematics and belaboring the point.
And just as Rapture built on the muscle and intensity of Divination, Luna raises the bar on both counts again and adds a sense of urgency. Thanks, in part, to the comparatively quick turn between albums - two years versus the four between Divination and Rapture - the once-again stable ELVENKING lineup is committed, confident and certainly ready to rock here, especially as the album progresses.
Luna does lean heavier on the folksier side as it opens, with "Season Of The Owl", the title track and "Gone Epoch" more redolent with violin, synths and the traditional/"medieval" flourishes the band captures without employing old-timey instruments, which helps retain the oomph that might otherwise have been lost. But starting with the almost death metal bluster of "Stormcarrier", with its intermittent growly vocals countering frontman Damna's otherwise consistent cleans and crunching grooves, through to the end, the oomph gains prominence and largely holds onto it.
"Starbath" is pretty much a straight-up power metal anthem, save for its violin solo and minstrel-ish flair, while both the brooding "The Ghosting" and the rather excellent, more epic "The Weeping" favor the sort of hefty, mid-tempo chug and simmer of METALLICA's Black Album. The groovy "On These Haunted Shores" and furious "Throes of Atonement" ratchet up the aggression yet offer rousing sing-alongs to make them more inviting than threatening.
As noted above, "Reader of the Runes - Book II" provides the denouement by, as you might expect, bringing everything to bear and leaving nothing on the table. It offers a bit of all of the above in a complex and shapeshifting yet always engaging 11 minutes that is at times quite elegant and at others unabashedly brutal. It's an effective, emphatic end - which should hopefully give ELVENKING a jumping off point to try something else instead of merely turning Reader of the Runes into some convenient/tired franchise.
4.0 Out Of 5.0
