EILERA – Fusion

Eilera is a singer/songwriter based in France, and Fusion is her first full-length album after a couple of demo and EP releases in 2003 and 2005. The 10-song Fusion also features Loic Tezenas on guitars and studio musicians filling in everywhere else. Eilera and Tezenas co-produced the album and did the songwriting and arrangements.

Fusion is another in a long line of female-fronted Gothic Rock albums that tries to get by with thick atmosphere, classical instrumentation, sampled sound effects, and some mild Electronic influences instead of any really heavy stuff. There are some good riffs and a bit of heaviness to some tracks on Fusion, but listening to it won’t bring out the headbanger within, unless you really like Celtic fiddling and wished more albums featured it.

Fusion is an album that can best be described as pleasant, and almost mellow at times. It does a good job creating an atmospheric soundscape, thanks to the well-done arrangements and solid production. The disc isn’t boring to listen to: the songs all flow together nicely, and there’s a lot going on in the background to get your attention. Eilera has a good, pleasant voice that makes the songs enjoyable, and Tezenas manages to come up with some solid riffs when given the opportunity.

At the same time, Fusion is a hard album to get excited about. While there’s nothing wrong with it and it doesn’t do anything glaringly bad, it just feels a little languid at times and non-threatening; Fusion‘s the kind of Heavy Rock your mother would probably like. Fusion plays things safe and laid-back most of the time, to its semi-detriment.

Still, Fusion is certainly not a bad album, and some of the songs Eilera has come up with are solid: “Healing Process,” “Addicted,” “The Angel You Love … The Angel You Hate,” “Keep Our Heaven,” and “September” are all well-done tracks with catchy vocals, elaborate arrangements, nice melodies, solid riffs, and attention-grabbing instrumentation. “Keep Our Heaven”’s combination of chugging riffs and intertwined fiddle lines sounds like a disaster on paper, but it works really well here, making this one of the album’s better songs.

Eilera’s Fusion is a respectable foray into Gothic Rock territory, even though it’s not the greatest example of its type; still, it’s not without its fair share of strong musical moments and the disc has atmosphere to spare. As such, it can be recommended to die-hard fans of this style of music.