Emerald Shine - Misty Tales
EMERALD SHINE
MISTY TALES
Independent Release
5th November 2018
Emerald Shine's journey began in 2013 when composer and songwriter, Lenka "Leena" Jašková, started to write atmospheric heavy music inspired by fantasy stories. In 2013, she managed to bring the first line-up of musicians together. While fusing the power of metal music with the delightful sound of a harp, violin, recorders and tin whistles and the usage of three different vocal styles and progressive elements, developed their versatility, originality, and sound within the folk metal genre.
Tracklist:
Intro
Autumn Mists
Silver Riders
The Elven King
Where Life’s Been Ruined
A Lake Far Away
Voice of the Muse
The Song of Fallen Leaves
The Only One
The Time Has Come
We’ll Be Back
Rainy Night (Re-Recorded)
With all the above-listed instruments and voices performed live, Emerald Shine has been well received by fans at music clubs and festivals. The band has so far released two CDs; a demo EP “Beneath the Stars” in 2016, and a debut full-length album “Misty Tales” in 2018, plus several music videos, of which “Rainy Night” has been the most successful, becoming one of the 12 finalists of the year 2018 in a music video chart on the Czech channel TV Rebel.
Though this album is my introduction to Emerald Shine, “Misty Tales” starts with and instrumental opening of a playful string quartet, but once we get into the first track “Autumn Tales”, it’s becomes an album full of captivating catchy melodies at quick-pace tempo which are definitely an attention grabber.
The band gives a lot of focus on the folk elements like the following tracks “Silver Riders” and “The Elven King” where you hear the flute and violin become a standout with their folkish tunes. Throughout the album, they don’t break away from their musical pattern but some songs get their own individuality like “Where Life’s Been Ruined” and “Voice of the Muse” where we get some elements of black metal and “The Song of the Fallen Leaves” breaks away from the rest of the album by being more of a ballad. I definitely like the track “We’ll Be Back” which felt like a appropriate closer to the main album where they give it their all with a build up of strong power metal energy, while their EP song, “Rainy Night” gets a revamp to with more clear production and added more of the folk touches. The songs are aesthetically pleasing for fantasy fans when it comes to the visual imagery in their lyrics and the chants that’s included in a few of their songs, and the shared duty of clean and harsh vocals keeps their style interesting. On a side note: for a band that is still young, the production is really great.
Band members:
Lenka “Leena” Jašková - vocals, recorders, tin whistles
Radomír Vrzal - harp, harsh vocals
Radek Čečiva – bassguitar
Kamil Rýc - drums
Dušan Sommer - guitars, clean vocals
Klára Šindelková - violin