HELIUM VOLA LIOD ALBUM CHROM RELEASE: APRIL 26, 2004 REVIEW: APRIL 21, 2004

Exploring the borderland between medieval, classical and modern electronic music, Helium Vola’s second album, “Liod” has been long sought from their fans. The first album, “Helium Vola” (2001), instantly became a hit on the European neo-folk stage, and the expectations on the new release have been high. Especially since the single “Veni Veni” released earlier this year was of really high class, did well on the German Alternative Charts and gave hope for an outstanding album.
But I have to say that the mission failed. Except for the songs from the single, which are very catchy and more or less a development of the first album, “Liod” is very complicated; many of the tracks takes more than a couple of listens to cope with and the album feels uneven.
One unique thing though is that a piece from the first album, “Omnis Mundi Creatura”, appears every now and then on the new album as well. An interesting way of re-use! Together with the song “La Fille”, it creates a red thread through the album, a thread that reappears and places the two songs against each other.
The maestro behind the project is Ernst Horn (Deine Lakaien, Qntal), who is assisted by an ensemble consisting of some ten people. Horn writes all the music, and Sabine Lutzenberger sings a majority of the songs. Her beautiful and powerful voice ideally suits the medieval tunes. Together with the well written lyrics the music could have been as perfect as the first album; it is just too complicated to reach the average audience.

KARIN MARTINSSON