The Elven Premiere Debut LP Solstice in Full; Out Thursday
The Elven will release their debut album, Solstice, this week through Spinda Records, Clostridium Records and Echodelick Records. If that seems like a mighty consortium for a newcomer outfit, it’s worth noting that the band is comprised of members of Spain’s Saturna — bassist Rod Tirado and guitarist/vocalist James Vieco — collaborating with Earthless guitarist Isaiah Mitchell. With the lineup completed by keyboardist Tabatha Puig and drummer Javi Gómez, the full band came together as a pandemic-era divergence on the part of Tirado and Vieco, and while I don’t know the timing on at what point in the last five years it was actually put to tape — which really only matters if you’re curious how long it took the songs to come together and how long they’ve been sitting on the release, which I am — the sound of the band speaks to a timeless encapsulation of classic and heavy rock. Suddenly three labels to cover different geographic regions doesn’t seem like too much.
Opener “Shine” begins with a stretch of standalone guitar and vocals, offering immediately organic tonality and a recognizably strong, ’70s-style vocal from Vieco that will continue to mesh well with the proceedings throughout. There are flashes of proggier effects, synthy flashes from Puig‘s keys and leans into psychedelia amid the low-end warmth of the underlying riffing, varying in fuzz and tone and of course every now and then taking off on an ace solo or two — unavoidable given personnel and not a thing about which to complain — but what’s most striking about it is the cohesiveness of character. “Shine” resolves in a purposeful, soulful chorus and lets the listener loose on the rest of the album with high expectations that the strum and circa-’68 bottom-of-mouth-style verse and subsequent classy scorch of “Far Beyond” begins to meet.
Whatever the original impetus might’ve been — one assumes plague restlessness — behind the formation of The Elven, the band remain striking in their blend of influences from a span of decades, letting “Closer to Freedom” follow “Far Beyond” as a slower, drumless melodic divergence before the shuffle renews in “New Pair of Wings,” which answers the textural elements of hte songs preceding with a purposefully light, airy pastoralia of tone. Even the solo sounds nostalgic, and it’s supposed to, so that’s a win. Further to the purposeful nature of the entire affair, Solistice‘s eight tracks/34 minutes play out in a back and forth of longer and shorter songs, the longest of which is side B opener “Stand Right Next to Me” at 6:20.
There’s a sax, or what sounds like one, in “Stand Right Next to Me,” and that adds to the fullness of the jam that follows the earlier verse, which sets the vocals deeper in the mix for a broader sound. The band are well comfortable in the swing and the finish is classic enough that it sounds like they’re ending the intro to a late-night talk show, by which I of course mean they’re both pro-shop and on-fire, and the realignment toward the shorter and more straight-ahead “Out the Door” does nothing to lessen that impression. Somewhat crunchier in tone — nothing here comes close to aggression; for context, there’s still room for a honky-tonk sound from the keys — it recalls early ’70s blues-boogie without aping either structure or production, conveying a clarity of sound as well as an aesthetic of humility despite the arrangement outreach. The abiding lack of pretense and/or extraneous bullshit serves them well throughout.
The last longer-shorter pairing is “Wherever I Go,” duly rambling and Joe Cocker-esque in its throaty melody and sway, and the 2:23 “All of a Sudden,” which is a quieter outro based around the guitar with flourish of keys to complement. A subdued ending to a record that’s never quite let it all loose but that instead has skillfully and gracefully carried the listener from one end to the other, still remaining balanced between intention and execution, by which I mean nothing is overwritten or overplayed for what they’re trying to do. Again, pro-shop. Those who come into Solstice with the context in mind of who these players are and their prior work will probably get their hopes up going into it, but regardless of where you think the music might go because you know Saturna or Earthless, part of what The Elven accomplish on this first album is to create a vibrant persona of the band’s own.
The album is out April 3, which is Thursday, and can be ordered now. You’ll find it in full on the player below, followed by more info from the PR wire. I didn’t mention it in the review proper, but credit to Jondix for the badass art.
Enjoy the stream:
‘Solstice’ will be available on April 3, 2025, and will be released exclusively in digital format and on vinyl; in a limited edition of 300 copies in marbled yellow, which can already be pre-ordered at spindarecords.com.
What began at the end of 2020 as an irrational need to compose music by Rod Tirado and James Vieco from Saturna soon took on a different identity when they brought in their friends Isaiah Mitchell (Earthless) on lead guitar, Tabatha Puig on keyboards, and Javi Gómez on drums. In just one month, they wrote the 8 songs that make up this debut album, titled ‘Solstice’, which they recorded with all the freshness and spontaneity of the moment at the Analog Drive-in Studios, alongside Christian A. Korn at the controls and Dani Pernas as co-producer. Pernas would later handle the mixing before passing the project on to Estanis Elorza for mastering.
For the graphic design, they once again enlisted an illustration by Jondix (Tool, Black Sabbath, High on Fire, Electric Wizard) and the design by Jalón de Aquiles for a vinyl edition that will be released by Spinda Records (ES), in a new collaboration with Clostridium Records (DE) and Echodelick Records (US), who previously worked together on the debut album by Loma Baja.
Solstice
1. Shine
2. Far beyond
3. Closer to freedom
4. New pair of wings
5. Stand right next to me
6. Out the door
7. Wherever I go
8. All of a sudden
THE ELVEN is:
Rod Tirado: bass
James Vieco: guitars, vocals
Isaiah Mitchell: guitars
Tabatha Puig: keys
Javi Gómez: drums
The Elven, “Shine” official video
Clostridium Records on Facebook
Clostridium Records on Instagram
Echodelick Records on Facebook
Echodelick Records on Instagram
Echodelick Records on Bandcamp
Tags: Clostridium Records, Echodelick Records, Isaiah Mitchell, Saturna, Solstice, Spain, Spinda Records, The Elven, The Elven Solstice
