Eluveitie, one year after their last record, release their third full-length album entitled "Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion". The band from Switzerland has become quite famous with their 2 previous albums "Spirit" and "Slania" combining very well folk with melodic death. "The Arcane Domination" is the first part of the maiden project of the band with the second ‘Evocation’ part entitled "Evocation II-Visions" expected to be released by the end of the year. This album represents significant changes in their musical style and is the first for the two new members of the band.

More specifically, in the summer of 2008 the brothers Rafi Kirder and Sevan Kirder (bassist and bagpipe player, respectively) left the band and their replacements were Kay Brem and Pade Kistler respectively. As it regards the musical style of the record, and the entire project, it is clearly acoustic and completely differs from the previous works of the band completely removing the melodic death elements and retaining only the folk style.

"Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion" is a pure folk metal disk with the strong melodic parts to dominate and the wild and fast death elements and the blast beats from the drums to be absent from all the 15 songs on the album. The only thing that somewhat resembles the old style of the band is the use of death vocals but this is still very limited. The singer of the band Chrigel Glanzmann disclaims the role of the frontman and leaves the lead vocals in the gorgeous voice of Anna Murphy. This concept album is a trip to Gaelic mythology sang entirely in Gaelic with the lyrics to be 1600-2000 years old. The album is a big risk and change for the band which completely distanced from the sound that established them. Overall, the album is composed very well and flows pleasantly but hardly anyone who does not hear folk would be excited. The songs that in my opinion stand out are the beautiful "Brictom", "Carnutian Forest" and the majestic "Omnos", but the rest fail, at least on first hearing, to impress.

Eluveitie made a new start with "Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion" by changing their sound and music direction. The album is very good and will certainly satisfy fans of folk, but those who heard the band and loved the combination of folk with melodic death metal will surely be disappointed. For those who do not know the band and would like to hear something different in the death metal genre it would be better to check their previous albums.