Mandola Power – Swiss Folk-Metal-Band Eluveitie with their Song Omnos

If you count the youtube views this video might be one of the most successful songs with a mandola (or ocatave mandolin). It has been viewed almost 4 million times – it’s for sure that there are many more metal fans than people who watch traditional or classical mandola videos.

Eluveitie – Omnos

Eluveitie – the name obviously should be taken as the name of Helvetia / Switzerland in the gallic language – was founded as a studio project in 2002 already by bandleader and octave mandolin (or mandola) player Chriegel Glanzmann. The CDs Spirit (2005) and Slania (2007) both were successful and made Eluveitie known to the folk metal fans in Europe and the USA. Today Eluveitie plays regularly concerts and important festivals.

Th latest CD “Evocation I – the arcane dominion” was a  completely acoutic recording. But in general Eluveitie prefers the powerful folk-metal sound with distorted guitars and heavy bass like in the following version of Omnos:

Eluveitie – Omnos (Early Metal Version)

The mandolin (or octave mandolin) can be seen in many of the available Eluveitie videos, but sometimes it is difficult to hear the sound of this instrument. The sound is based on the powerful guitar and the bass, hurdy gurdy, flutes, bagpipes and the octave mandolin are added.

Eluveitie is studying the history of the gallic tribes including the ancient gallic language. The lyrics for some of their songs has been writen by specialists for those ancient languages.

You can find the lyrics of the song Omnos with the following live version of the song:

Eluveitie – Omnos – first time LIVE @Salzhaus Winterthur Switzerland 10.04.09

Playlist Eluveitie

Additional information

Interview (in German) with the bandleader and mandola player Chriegel Glanzmann in the Neuen Züricher Zeitung (swiss newspaper):

http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/kultur/aktuell/gallische_mythologie_und_death_metal_1.2417513.html

Eluveitie website: http://www.eluveitie.ch/

Eluveitie Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/eluveitie

Interesting blog about Eluveitie (englisch) with a lot of information and many pictures: http://chillinaris.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/eluveitie/

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