Everon beat a path of progressive rocking, melodic metalling and symphonic grandeur.

Release Date: 28th February 2025

Label: Music Theories Recordings

Format: digital / CD

A CHALLENGING RETURN

A sixteen year hiatus. A fanfare sounds as Everon return, yet a journey which has been made ever so more challenging in the loss of drummer Christian ‘Moschus’ Moos during the recording. It adds a poignant significance to the themes of hurt and regret that run through the album.

“I think it is a bit in the nature of the kind of music we’re doing that it is rather the darker type of emotions that will find a place on an Everon album,” says singer Oliver Phipps. “Feelings of hurt or loss are very intense emotions, and for some reason, in music, I was always more gravitating towards the darker stuff rather than happy songs.“

Subject matter sorted, musically, an old school philosophy is at work and delivered with bold and broad strokes of the Progressive brush. Lashings of Mercury inspired operatics, grand symphonic gestures, Prog Metal and musical theatre of an orchestral bent. The type of symphonic grandeur to be found in the vaults of Avantasia and some of the more strident heavier melodic work reminiscent of classic Threshold.

FOLK ROCKING METAL JIGS

Opening track No Embrace delivers on several fronts. Quirky passages and powerful crescendos cross swords with verses that fairly Folk Rock along in a Metal jig and powerful crescendos. A first glimpse too of the guitar of Ralf Janssen. Broken Angels covers the common ground where delicate musical narrative and the spectacularly melodramatic meet. Singing of “the enemy within” there’s a moment where some monstrous shredding and riffing is almost expected. Must have been listening to too much Dream Theater. Instead we get an emotional solo played with feel ind passion.

Trail of Tears, Imperia and Angel vocalist, Helena Iren Michaelsen, features on several tracks including the more considered Grace and Shells. “Helena happens to be one of my favourite singers and my favourite woman,” says Phipps. “She’s my wife so it’s no surprise she appears on this album.” Not just adding the delicate touches, she belts it out with the best on the intense blockbuster Guilty As Charged.

UPLIFTING AND STIRRING

Travels and Monster are shorter bursts of more accessible and innately melodic Symphonic Rock with unavoidably catchy earworms. Goosebumpingly uplifting and stirring – especially the chorus part of Monster. Love to hear Damian Wilson and Adam Wakeman have a go at the latter. The piano is suited down to the ground for Adam and Damian would wallow in the arrangement. Having said that, the five and a half minutes are worthy of the might of genre icons Avantasia or Ayreon.

Pinocchio’s Nose plays out like a theatrical tale . The combination of voices and dynamic shifts are accompanied by Celtic flourishes and a soaring guitar solo part that skirts the ethnic and dramatic. Only challenged by the might of the “someone save me, I am drowning” vocal part. The collaboration with  Canadian singer/songwriter LEAH is an ideal match with her penchant for Celtic influences which weave around the track.

The ‘letting off some steam’ instrumental OCD offers some relief from the emotional clout of the sensitive arrangement of Children Of The Earth and Until We Meet Again. The latter the most heart-on-sleeve songs on the album with the lyric referring to the passing of Moschus. “This was the last song I wrote for this album. While I was working on it, I got the news that our lifelong friend had died,” we’re told, yet the sentiment is given a driving arrangement.

EPIC – AGAIN

The epic 14-minute extended opulence of closing track Flesh opens with sub-classical passage with medieval flourishes and dramatic vocal setting the scene. The widescreen feel soars accompanied by more searing guitar. Maybe aware that the end of the album is nigh, the last couple of minutes are genuinely epic and thrilling.

A fine return for Everon. And for some, Shells will be a fine introduction to Everon. A long time in coming and shrouded in tragedy. Such is destiny. However, suffering for art is commonplace and often results in works that offer the sort of triumphant majesty that Everon deliver on Shells. Bravo!

Here’s Guilty As Charged:

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