Band's List Symphonic Metal Elfensjón Ephemera

Another year another release by Japanese doujin music circle/creative project ELFENSJóN. Since their formation in 2018 the project released one album or EP anually starting with the 2018s release Einherjar. Ephemera is newest part of their discography which was brought to light on December 24 this year accompanied with two singles "Witch of Abyss" and "Thorn" which were released prior the albums official release.

Keisuke Kurose explained that Ephemera continiues the brother/sister arc revolving around Astral and Elisia and their journey in search for the white witch which was started in 2019 with the release Ash of Rouge so storywise Ephemera is a follow-up of that record while STYX which was released last year started another storyline which may or may not connect to this story in the future. As my Japanese knowlegde is very forseeable I won't go any further on the lyrics during this review.

The mini album, which features eight tracks and a playing-time of approx. 30 minutes is the first record which doesn't feature female vocalist okogeeechann who was featured in all prior released works. Instead the female vocals were recorded by YURiCa/Hanatan, a Japanese doujin singer and utaite (a person who covers Japanese pop songs and publishes them on Niconico or YouTube) while Kazuya Fujita once again sang the male voice lines. Both vocalists are singing from the view of the albums protagonists (so the releases can be considered a musical radioplay), a concept which isn't new as Samsas Traum did a similar thing on their early releases like Die Liebe Gottes, Tineoidea or Oh Luna Mein where the singers each had one or more role they embodied.

The album starts of with a song called "Wiegenlied" (German for "Lullaby") beginning with a gothicesque orchestration just to become the first heavier banger on this record. The second track is called Majo no Naraku (Witch of Abyss) which was one of the two singles released prior. It's another heavy track with an light electronic underline. The first song which stands out is the following Toge (Thorn) with vocals provided by Fujita. Using shuffle beats, a musical element ELFENSJóN used in one track on the Ash of Rouge record, that song became a track you could easily dance to. Hrafntinna is the first of two more quiet tracks Fallen and Undead Sin are again some heavier yet very melodic songs. The instrumental arrangements done by founder Keisuke Kurose (who also writes all songs lyrics and composes the music) underline the vocals by Fujita in a most harmonic way even though both tracks are on the heavier side of this record. The seventh track once again features vocals by YURiCa/Hanatan which were close to okogeeechann's voice so I thought during the first listen of the album that she (okogeeechann) was actually on this record as well. The track starts off calm and quiet just to become heavier by the time. The work is closed by the song Rakuin no na wa Kagayaku, another heavy yet catchy track.

In around 30 minutes ELFENSJóN show once again that they can create high-quality music without the help from any big company. They know what their fans want to hear so this album is the perfect addition in the band's discography.