REVIEW: Leaves’ Eyes – Fires in the North EP
So, there’s been this little situation going on with Leaves’ Eyes, a band formed by singer Liv Kristine. After what seemed to be a bit of a peaceful, yet turbulent period of disagreements within the group itself, which left us knowing that the founding member, Liv Kristine, was no longer a part of the band and had been replaced by Finnish singer Elina Siirala, mostly famous from EnkElination to fill her shoes. It wasn’t an easy thing – they released a new video and a new recording of “Edge of Steel” with Elina on vocals, and while most people WERE being respectful to Elina and not hating on her, it wasn’t welcomed with big arms, which is mostly for the sole reason of re-recording Liv’s songs with Elina.
But, finally, after a bit of time, Leaves’ Eyes are delivering an EP with Elina as a singer, and I was looking forward to hear her in action with a song written more for her operatic voice, rather than trying to sing Liv’s more pop-oriented vocals, in lack of a better word to use.
So, this EP consists of five songs – much to my dismay, it was only one new song, “Fires In The North”, released in two different versions – one “normal” and one acoustic, and then three re-recordings of songs from the latest Leaves’ Eyes album, “King of Kings” – “Edge of Steel” which we are already familiar with, accompanied by “Sacred Wov” and “Sword in Rock”. All three of these are amongst my personal favorites off the album, making it even more interesting, but I won’t deny I was a bit disappointed to only see ONE new song appearing.
So, lets first talk about the new song – “Fires in the North”. It’s a pretty… decent song. I want to like this a lot, but it lacks. It has a bit of the Leaves’ Eyes spirit, makes me think of a few of their songs, a bit adventourus, but it never pops. I’m waiting for that explosion in the chorus that never comes – in fact, it’s really the same tempo and feeling all through the song, and it’s not until the third verse things starts to happen, which I really like.
However, what I will give them is that this song fit Elina a lot better. When I first heard “Edge of Steel” from the video, I felt that she was singing “too slow”, or how to put it more properly. I was used to Liv’s tempo in the song, and was a bit taken a back how slow it felt, but putting her operatic voice on this new song, which was adjusted better for her, was a lot better, and gave us a better insight in how Elina would work with Leaves’ Eyes, and I think it’ll be just fine.
So – for the three re-recorded songs – you already know I love these songs so I don’t need to stress that – was delivered with mixed results. As I explained above, it feels for me that “Edge of Steel” got a bit slow for my taste, however, she did a really good job on “Sacred Wov”, where her style fit very well with the song, and her best performance on this EP was delivered on “Sword in Rock” where she actually picked up the pace a bit, without changing her style, which was a nice surprise.
With that said, it was nice finally seeing Elina perform on something original, and I’m looking forward hearing her work on an entire album, and not just one song in the future.
(Label: AFM Records)
// Sara
Sara Hammerzmith 
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