Au Ellai

"Au Ellai" is the final instalment in a trilogy that started with "Ea Tasse" and continued with "Ea 2". The premise is that all the music is based on writings of ancient dead cultures with lyrics written and sung in the reconstructed languages of those societies. What those cultures and languages may be, the mysterious Ea are perhaps wise not to say. Originally I thought these guys were American but they're actually Russian. Plenty of ancient dead cultures with dead languages that may have had some kind of writing, even if not alphabetic, may have existed in Russia. I'm thinking of the mysterious Khazars whose capital was close to Astrakhan and was excavated very recently as at this time of writing ... then there were the ancient Biarmians in extreme northern Russia who might have traded with the Vikings. Anyway, Ea's approach to celebrating the dead cultures of their choice is reverent, solemn and grave, maybe too much so at times. True, they do play funereal doom metal which means the music should be slow and the attitude should be serious and sorrowful; still, funereal doom or not, Ea's respect should translate into a soundtrack that at least inspires some interest in us listeners to think about finding out more about long-dead cultures, and ask why did they die out when they did and what this might mean for our own culture.

The music is much lighter than on "Ea Tasse" - I haven't heard the second album - and has more clean-toned melodic guitar than it does actual metal which is of the blackened (slightly) doom kind with rasping death metal vocals. A dominant feature here is melancholy piano melodies throughout the three tracks. Together with clean guitars, the improvised drumming, the synthesised violins and other various effects, the use of piano turns the whole work into something like late 19th century / early 20th century formal orchestral music with dollops of black / doom to spice it up when it gets a bit melodramatic. While the album is split into three long named tracks with the longest track taking up nearly half the album's length, the actual tracks don't differe in pace or structure and melodies and riffs have very little individual character so "Au Ellai" plays like one complete and very amorphous work that wanders where it will but doesn't appear to have a goal or place to go to.

If there's a message for us from the ancient cultures investigated here, I've no idea what it is after repeated listenings: I have no sense of wars being fought, rebellions being crushed or terrible plagues or famines devastating peasants and aristocrats alike. One message I do get loud and clear and which I'm sure others will get too is that no matter how grand or epic the music is or how beautiful and plaintive the piano melodies are or how well the drummer holds his own against the general trend of the music, all of this is no substitute for lack of direction and structure in theme and music that would hold the whole thing together. There are many sections in the music where a lone instrument flounders along, playing lots of pretty trills and frills as if waiting for a sign or a direction. Passages where a synthesised orchestra or a massed choir appears don't sound at all original or fresh. When the elegy comes - I recognise an elegy when I hear one because it sounds just how I expect the elegy to sound with humming choirs, piano going up and down the scale with nothing better to do, droning guitar and a general atmosphere of grief - it's actually a bit of a surprise because the music leading up to it lacks any kind of build-up of tension or emotion, there's no climax or resolution, and the opportunity for any emotional or musical release never presents itself.

If you've heard "Ea Tasse" and "Ea 2" already, by all means you should hear out "Au Ellai" because you'll have expectations of Ea that need closure. I'd advise not to have too high expectations of what the music should do for you and you may be disappointed. This album is one long mess that didn't have to be, if only the concept behind it was better defined and the treatment more creative and original. I don't mind if the whole concept behind the trilogy is a joke, I only mind if the joke doesn't pull off as successfully as it could have.