Elis – Catharsis

Releasedate: 27-11-2009; Label: Napalm Records
By: Lara Cappelli

Elis is a female-fronted Metal band from Liechtenstein formed in 2003. Unfortunately in 2006 the band got through the sudden and premature death of their singer Sabine Dünser after the recordings of their third album Griefshire. In 2008 they announced their new singer Sandra Schleret, former vocalist of Dreams of Sanity and Siegfried, and started to tour with her before releasing their latest studio album, Catharsis.

Vocals play a fundamental role in every band, but their importance is almost essential in a genre like female-fronted Metal. Therefore, finding a new one is always complicated and, in this case, it’s even tragic as it followed a terrible loss. Elis was bold enough to take a step forward though, and carry on with their career with their new talented singer Sandra. Her voice handles a wide range of sounds, it adapts to the mood of the songs, aggressive on the heaviest ones and sweet in the slower ones, like Rainbow, which is probably the pearl of the whole album. Generally speaking, Elis sound didn’t change that much, it’s still linked to the ordinary standards of the genre, symphonic sounds and grunts every now and then, but it’s pretty remarkable the atmosphere that comes out of the songs which is very dark and gloomy. Catharsis is surely a great work on Elis’ discography, they still don’t have that something extra that will make them able to stand out from the bunch of female-fronted bands of this period, but they do have what it takes to achieve that change.

Links:
Elis MySpace
Elis Official