left to right: Merlin, Anna, Ivo
2016 was a turbulent year for Swiss Folk Metal titans Eluveitie as the act lost three key members: drummer Merlin Sutter, guitarist Ivo Henzi, and hurdy-gurdist and co-vocalist Anna Murphy, all in one summer. These three musicians then decided to start their own band, christening it after Anna's solo album, Cellar Darling.
Dubbing their sound "new wave of folk rock", Cellar Darling pulls back on their old band's heavier sound and channels their energy on storytelling, incorporating Progressive Rock elements into their music. Their debut This Is the Sound was released in 2017 to widespread acclaim. The Spell, a Doom Metal-infused concept album, followed two years later.
Members:
- Anna Murphy - vocals, hurdy-gurdy, flute, synths (2016-)
- Ivo Henzi - guitars, bass (2016-)
- Merlin Sutter - drums (2016-)
Discography
- This Is the Sound (2017)
- The Spell (2019)
Cellar Troping
- Aerith and Bob: Ivo, Merlin, and Anna.
- Album Title Drop: This is the sound repeats before the hooks in "Challenge".This is the sound, this is the sound,
this is the sound of you hitting the ground - And Show It to You: Wonder whom that heart in the cover
◊ for The Spell belongs to... - Badass Boast: "Challenge."Challenge me 'til the early dawn
With my hands tied at the back
I know I'll bring you down
To your knees at last
Crying mercy, mercy, have mercy on me - Bittersweet Ending: The Spell ends with Death finally listening to the maiden after so many attempts of taking her own life just to be with him.
- Bungled Suicide: Exaggerated in The Spell where the maiden tries everything just to come face to face with Death. Since he has cast the immortality curse on her, nothing can kill her.
- "Burn": first, she tries to burn the curse out of herself.
- "Hang": when fire doesn't work, she tries on the noose and chooses the highest tree to hang it from. She remains alive enough to help a bird fly again.
- "Sleep" implies poison, sweet and substance, or an overdose, taking into account the pills in the album artwork for this song.
- "Insomnia": unable to sleep herself to death, she attempts dying by staying up instead.
- "Freeze": she goes up a mountain and tries to die from hypothermia.
- "Fall". Surviving the cold, she flings herself off the height hoping the impact would kill her.
- "Drown". The maiden ends up at sea and tries to drown herself then.
- "Love, Part II". After all of the aforementioned methods don't work out, she gets out of the water and just lets herself bleed out all over the place. Only then, finally, does Death listen to her plea and take her with him.
- Concept Album: The Spell is a take on the Death and the Maiden trope where the maiden falls in love with Death, and so Death casts Immortality on her, and she attempts suicide after suicide just to be with him.
- Cosmic Plaything: The man in "Six Days" seems to be this. The maiden in The Spell as well, in the opener "Pain":Born to absorb all the pain in the world
like a voodoo doll of mankind,
how did I become the eye for an eye,
fearful of your unruly wrath? - Cover Version: Did one of Queen's "The Prophet Song", Tears for Fears' "Mad World", and "The Cold Song" from Henry Purcell's semi-opera King Arthur, or, The British Worthy.
- Death and the Maiden: The Spell is entirely a twist on this trope.
- Death Seeker: The entire concept of The Spell centers around a maiden who has fallen in love with Death himself and thus seeks him every which way after Death casts an Immortality spell on her.
- Doom Metal: The band has been compared often to The Gathering since their release of songs from The Spell.
- Elementsal Motifs: Well, they do have one song called "Water" and another called "Fire, Wind, and Earth"...
- Epic Rocking: Quite a few.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: The videos for "Insomnia" and "The Spell".
- Fish Eyes: Taken very literally early on in "The Spell".
- Fun with Acronyms: Even the band lampshaded how This Is the Sound is abbreviated to TITS.
- Fun with Homophones: One, two, three, for ever... Five, six, seven, hate, lover...
- Gratuitous Greek: The words hoi polloi are half the hook of "The Hermit".
- Happily Failed Suicide: "Love, Part II" starts with the maiden letting herself bleed to death after all the other attempts to kill herself didn't work out, then over the course of the song, she finds that maybe hey, life isn't so bad after all. Subverted in that she does go come "Death, Part II".
- The Hermit: They have a song concerning and titled after this exact trope.
- Last Note Nightmare: In the form of a Scare Chord in "Sleep". "Death, Part II" has a subtler one.
- Lighter and Softer: Zigzags this when compared to Eluveitie, who has its own lighter and softer work.
- Lyrical Cold Open: "The Spell" and "Freeze".
- Melismatic Vocals: The Spell displays Anna's capacity for this.
- Mind Screw: The video singles from The Spell.
- Miniscule Rocking: "Water" lasts below two minutes. "Fall" clocks in at one.
- One-Woman Wail: Some of Anna's high-note passages in The Spell tend to verge into this territory.
- One-Word Title: Most songs in The Spell and several in This Is the Sound.
- Psychopomp: Death laments about being this for everyone.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Eluveitie's red. Inverted in their social media activity.
- Reprise Medley: "Death, Part II" in shades. Bonus point for doubling as a Lonely Piano Piece.
- Rock Trio: One guy takes care of all guitar work including bass, leaving the latter to a live member during tour. The other guy plays drums. And then the woman plays hurdy-gurdy (among other instruments) and sings.
- Siamese Twin Songs: "Freeze" >> "Fall", with little time to fade for the former.
- Snow Means Death:
- "Avalanche" is about freezing to death in the Alps.
- "Fire, Wind & Earth": "Now it's winter, I'm dying / Now it's colder, I'm freezing."
- "Freeze" is about an attempted suicide by hypothermia.
- Sequel Song:
- "Under the Oak Tree" continues in "High Above These Crowns".
- "Love" and "Death" both have a part two.
- Spurned into Suicide: The Spell. Death responds to a maiden's profession of love by casting a spell to make her immortal, hoping she would learn from feeling the eternal pain of what it's like to be him. For most of the album, she keeps on trying to kill herself.
- Title-Only Chorus: Avalanche, aval-avalanche, aval-aval-avalanche...
- Titled After the Song: The band was named after a song Anna's 2013 solo album of the same name.
- Uncommon Time: All over the place in The Spell. "Love, Part II" takes the cake for having its chorus sung in three different ways, too.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Touched upon in "Drown":Baptized so forcibly to never wither
I'm alive
Why am I alive?
How would it feel to fade away?
