The band’s second album now available though the first on Napalm records. Their music is comparisons to Nightwish and powerful movie soundtracks such as composer Hans Zimmer. This album is continues the journey from their 2018 debut Until Dawn.
Opening track “Unbound” impresses with skillful orchestral arrangements and vocalist Nele Messerschmidt’s extraordinary voice. The following “A Vagabond’s Heart” features an exciting intro and one of the catchiest choruses on the album.
ELVELLON is: Nele Messerschmidt (vocals), Gilbert Gelsdorf (guitars), Martin Klüners (drums), Pascal Pannen (keyboards), and Jan Runkel (bass). https://elvellon.net/index.php/en/
Nele and Jan took talk about the new album and of the songs.
Interview by Craig Newman
IMM: Hi, How are you?
Nele: I’m fine. It’s release day and a glorious day
IMM: You’re it is and it’s finally here. With a limited amount of time and so much to go over. Hi Jan! It’s finally great to get these songs out. This second album but the first for Napalm. I love the band and the music.
Nele: Thank you
Jan: Thanks
IMM: Now with available, did you do any reediting and/or recording before being released? Or they were already done and just waiting to be released?
Nele: Half of the songs were finished a while ago since last summer and fall waiting to be released but we had several ideas which are pretty old and go back to the beginning of Elvellon originally and many new ideas when recording started I think during 2022 if I remember correctly.
Jan: It took about a year for the whole recording process because of organizational problems and day jobs and stuff and take the time it needed and not rush anything. New material finished newly and as Nele said some old material included.
IMM: Your music is like you can keep playing it and never gets old it is just fabulous
Nele: Ah. Thank you so much. That is so good to hear and that’s all we want and we really follow what we feel is right for a song, and feels so great that it comes across that people appreciate our work.
IMM: For the songs over all what are you inspirations or references for your songs?
Nele? I think we all have instrumentally um inspirationally comes from game scores, film scores and people like Hans Zimmer. They all do such atmospheric music and put their heart and soul into their music, so detailed and rich and I think it’s very inspirational itself. And for me lyric wise it’s life that happens. For Elevellon we wanted to convey that for Until Till Dawn. We take things in real life and transfer it to the world of Evellon which is dreaming which can be heavy and typical symphonic elements. And we always transfer real life into this world which is all I can say to that.
IMM: Music is quality not quantity which I feel is important with your music. To focus on quality of the songs and musicianship pushing it as fast they can in their limits.
Nele: Absolutely! It took us six years yet the business changes so rapidly and everybody is for quality it feels like and especially with all these changes with streaming and A.I. and what not it really puts so much pressure on the artist. And when we were in consultations with Napalm Records we were let’s do this because we are all perfectionist and we need this time to able to create to adapt on to the quality we put out there with Until Dawn. And that was the most important thing to us. Not to go with the flow of quantity. To be relevant in the scene and the business you have to put out the quantity.
People, especially with streaming they don’t listen to albums necessarily, they just listen to one song of the artist then go to another playlist or whatever. And you as a artist don’t feel appreciated and this is what I always say we try to follow the path of doing handmade music which is really important for us. Creating an album with just three instruments, some lyrics and whatever is everybody can do nowadays with recording apps and what have you. And so yeah it’s important to us do this handmade stuff.
IMM: I watch the new three videos from the album. On “Vagabond Hearts”, Where was it filmed and Nele how long have you been riding horses?
Nele: (Laughter) Jan you want to start this one
Jan: We filmed at a mansion close to where we live, about an hour’s or two hour drive near the city of Bonn. It’s at nice location you can rent for events and celebrate weddings there. We were lucky to find it and so matched the feeling of the song and the story line was a perfect match for the band to come together there or goal post for everybody to walk towards.
IMM: Nele, are you comfortable riding the horse?
Nele: Absolutely! I loved it! They are my favorite animals to be around to be honest. I grew up with a grandfather who had a farm and had horses there and always had a strong connection to these animals. Unfortunately it was a business and did not have the chance to learn it. I am a child with horses. I enjoyed it so much and had a moment after shooting and was serious business and doing it all in a professional way. But the moment the horse stepped away for me I had this throw back to my childhood days and my grandparents died, and I don’t have those experiences anymore and I hold it very dear and reminded of it so much and got reminded of that where I need some quite time now and tears in my eyes.
IMM: Another couple of songs here such as the “Aeon Tree” which is the longest song on the album. What is this one about?
Nele: Yes it is and has so many great elements to it. Jan do you want to say something about it? That is a song that was written by our drummer Martin and I am really careful about saying anything about it because he is very specific what he wants to convey about it so I better not touch it (Laughter)
Jan: We talked to him about it and what it means to his interpretation is. This is Martins baby and this song through all the recording process he paid very close to attention to every detail especially to this song and I would mess up his interpretation and phrase it like he dose.
Nele: We learned to respect it over the years (Laughter)
IMM: The other two songs here, “Epiphany Of Mine”?
Nele: “Epiphany Of Mine” was the last song we wrote and on the album. Lyric wise I can tell you that is a Epiphany to suddenly realize that you have a life to live and to realize what this life is about and I am so happy that it is the last track on the album because listening to this album you go through so many emotions and is how I view it. Through so many emotions and many journeys and in the end you this realization of holy heck this life I have to live it and is so special I didn’t even recognize it in the first place and now I went through all of this stuff you can listen on the album too. And you just left with this. I don’t know if this makes sense to you?
There is a life to live and I’m going to do this
IMM: And “Vagabonds Heart”?
Jan: Interesting thing is I joined as full band member during 2023 and before I was just the live guy for bass and I got these demos during the process for writing songs, That was the one that hooked me first. I went through all the songs and I listen to them and that chorus was just amazing even though it didn’t have the final lyrics just dummy lyrics which were just pointless words but it just stuck. It just stayed there for few weeks and that is what it makes it special for me.
And then we came to select the singles and somehow we didn’t have it on the short list. Friends, family and people from the label encouraged us and said this is your first single!
It was perfect and when we planned and recorded the video it was the perfect choice.
Nele: We had no idea what we wanted to do in this video but together with the lyrics with video made sense lyric wise and meaning wise because I wrote Vagabonds Heart because of this inner journey you can take and you can discover so much that will amaze you and lift you up to get to know yourself better. Even if you lived such a long life already you have to dare to hop on this ride to leave the beaten path. That together with the video it became very clear to us and the song lyrics I wrote for this is about the journey we took the past six years and how we came together as a band again and to deal with everything that was thrown at us.
Jan: Actually I liked how it turned out at the end and as Nele said we had a rough year and for the video shoot. Like we had this journey topic and few scenes in mind like some images we wanted to capture but during the shoot it developed that we made the right decisions on set. When we saw the video it is perfect showing us as the band like coming back and resurfacing like six years after the first album and was the perfect symbol for that and some just created it while we were on set.
Nele: That is something I think it shows the absolute beauty of spontaneous creativity and is something we love to do and uncover things and uncover what song should be like and uncover how the video should be like but really we try to let it ride its self all the way and not force anything. When we came on set we all stunned by this mansion we rented and the hall were amazing and just beautiful so that little guy I am going to love him (Laughter) He was strong and so willing to do what you want from him as a human. That made it very easy for us to be very spontaneous and that is also rife for the other two music videos we put out. And that’s what adds up to the album of magic we call it.
IMM: Describe the album cover?
Nele: During the album process water was a very important thing to me because it’s such a strong element. You go to the beach and you’re like oh my god this is so romanticizing, the sea and the sunset, the clam water and you just enjoy being at the beach. And all of sudden it can turn into this chaos and huge waves with such a force that it can overwhelm you and kill you if you don’t pay attention. And that is in an instance so you can hear that in “Ocean of Treason”. And wanted to convey to people who look at the artwork that is how life feels for me and sometimes both calm and collected and can be strong at the same time. Can be chaos, can be everything but at the end if you integrate all the parts of your life and everything that happens around you and inside of yourself this can be force no matter how it shows up in what way it can carry you, it can lead you to a level up of that makes sense.
IMM: There is another way of saying where just visitors here
Nele: That’s true. And you can say in two different ways that my life don’t matter but what I would love to say to this is you do matter and what you decide for yourself matters. All matters for yourself and nothing else is more important.
IMM: For this album there is not a bad song and there are no bad songs on your first album.
Nele: Thank you so much
IMM: Are there shows being planned this year or book shows this year?
Jan: Actually we have our album release party next week and a festival near our hometown of Moers at Bollwerk 107. Then one more show supporting Van Canto. And the next part of the list is get more shows booked. We didn’t have enough head space to do much booking album preparations and video shoots. Playing live is the most important part for myself.
Nele: Yeah, we are looking for a good booking agency and is the main reason why not many shows are booked unfortunately because we love to and conquer the world
IMM: I predict you will have shows being booked by the end of the year and next year. And was great talking to you both and hope you can make it to North America for shows. And Keep writing that fantastic music.
Nele: Thank you so much
Jan: Thanks and like wise
Track listing:
1 Unbound
2 A Vagabond’s Heart
3 My Forever Endeavour
4 Ocean of Treason
5 The Aftermath of Life
6 Last of our Kind
7 Into the Vortex
8 A Legacy Divine
9 The Aeon Tree
10 Epiphany of Mine
