Steignyr – ‘Echoes from the Elder Faith’ (2024)
Rating: 7/10
Release: 14 June 2024
Label: Independent
Steignyr is a five-member epic Celtic death metal band from Barcelona, Spain, founded in 2011. “Echoes from the Elder Faith” is their sixth full-length album. There are a lot of elements in play with Steignyr: both male guttural vocals and female clean ones, and some great keyboards and production are joined by a violinist. The band checks off a lot of boxes, and at an hour and nineteen minutes, the album is a behemoth, and, as an added bonus, it’s a concept album with some interesting high fantasy plot elements.
Alas, for all the things going for it on paper, this album, it does have some flaws. The band promises Celtic melodies in their Spotify description, but there really isn’t enough of that energy in the album. A lot of the song’s melodies meander and it’s hard to engage with it– mainly in the middle third. The other problem is the voiceovers. They are long, repetitive, and, in most cases, have some good music on both sides of it, so you can’t skip them. Would’ve been much wiser to keep these at the end of tracks.
With that said, some of the tracks do have their moments. “Vodrar” is a great way to start the album. It’s got big, cinematic vibes, operatic vocals, and nice progressions, and gets outshined by the next track “Niflithar”, thematically introducing them with a slow banger. “Ashen Embers” is interesting for some three-quarters time bits, and blind is quite nice, too, with some plaintive, doleful tones. The Awakening is where the voiceover stuff comes back and goes on for too long. “Unbreakable Bond” has some strange, religious undercurrent that kinda turns me off, but “Shine a Light” has an interesting refrain, which is unique to the album.
The album is, for better and worse, quite long, and there are four tracks with long voice acting segments, but despite its weaknesses, there’s a lot to love about the album. The story is quite epic, and there’s a lot of raw musical talent on display here. If you have the patience for some fantasy shlock, it’s definitely worth checking out.
Tracklist
- Prologue 04:05
- Vördrar 03:26
- Niflithar 06:04
- Soul Eaters 06:09
- Ashen Embers 05:03
- The End Is Nigh 05:52
- Blind 03:58
- Awakening pt. 1 (The Calling) 07:58
- Awakening pt. 2 (Echoes) 13:24
- The Power of Unity 04:20
- The Broken World 04:39
- Rise Above 06:20
- Unbreakable Bond 03:29
- Shine a Light 03:39
- Epilogue 02:25