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All Hallows Eve

PowerPlay Magazine Jan 2011

 

"All Hallows Eve" - Power Play Magazine, Jan 2011

"The first thing you have to say about this, Elixir's sixth full-length studio album and follow up to 2006's "Mindcreeper" is that it looks the business. Duncan Storr (Hawkwind) has provided the cover artwork and the whole package looks beautiful. Now I know that people say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover but in the case of "All Hallows Eve", those first positive impressions that you get from the cover are more than justified by the music within. Elixir have been plying their trade since 1983 and they have rarely sounded as good as they do here. The band have produced the album themselves and demonstrated that they know just what is needed to bring the best out of their songs. The guitars are crisp and incisive, the bass and drums rock solid and Paul Taylor's melodic vocals soar effortlessly over the top. Every instrument has room to breathe yet they still lock together as part of a powerful whole. Most impressive though are the songs themselves, which are surely some of the most accomplished and effective in Elixir's lengthy career. The quality is uniformly high throughout but I have to pick out the memorable "Daughters Of The Moon", the snarling riffs of "Midnight Messiah", the incredibly impressive fourteen-minute epic "Samhain" and "The Pagan Queen" with its excellent solo. Indeed all the lead guitar work is top notch and definitely one of the features which makes this album so successful.

There is something special about "All Hallows Eve". It feels perfectly complete, as if not a note or word is out of place and I hope the band feel justly proud of what they have achieved. Fans will always talk about Elixir's admittedly stirring "Son of Odin" debut but to my mind "All Hallows Eve" may be not only their latest, but their greatest."

9 / 10

Chris Kee