Cellar Darling, the band featuring former Eluveitie members Anna Murphy (vocals, hurdy-gurdy), Merlin Sutter (drums) and Ivo Henzi (guitars, bass), has taken a turn towards heavy progressive rock with the release of ‘Insomnia’, the first single from its upcoming second album, due next year via Nuclear Blast. The track surprises on every level and takes the listener on a dark and sinister trip, illustrated beautifully by a mesmerizing animated video. Each part of this epic song outdoes the previous one on a musical journey that blends the band’s heaviest side together with hurdy-gurdy, flute, grand piano and a hammond organ, culminating in a grand finale that will leave the sonic traveller speechless.
The official video for ‘Insomnia’ was created by Costin Chioreanu and can be seen below.
Murphy told CrypticRock.com that the formation of Cellar Darling came about naturally. “We always knew when we left Eluveitie that we would continue playing music,” she said. “We didn’t actually have to discuss it a lot. We always wanted to play music with the three of us, and that was going to be a side project of some sort, but obviously things changed. The way we worked, we didn’t plan our sound and we didn’t have ideas of what genre it was going to be in. We just started composing; it was a very natural process. We met up at the rehearsal studio, jammed, and gathered ideas. That is how Cellar Darling was created. It was all very organic and impulsive.”
Regarding Cellar Darling‘s musical direction, Anna said: “I guess our only plan was to do something new and unique. It wouldn’t been very exciting to do Eluveitie 2; we had done that for 10 years. We wanted to do something that basically melts our three different characters. That is just what happened. We also were surprised a bit with the results; we didn’t know what to expect from this collaboration. It is definitely different. I guess some of the folk parts are still in there because I play a folk instrument and it is some of our background, but now there are so much more influences that we can incorporate into our songwriting, including classical elements. That is something I have always loved and missed in our previous band. Yes, it a bit more experimental.”
Their debut album “This Is The Sound” has been released on June 30 via Nuclear Blast. The disc was recorded at New Sound Studio with producer Tommy Vetterli (Coroner/Eluveitie).
Our review of “This Is The Sound” can be found here.
Upcoming Shows:
Mar 21 @ Foundry Sheffield SU, Sheffield, United Kingdom
Mar 23 @ The Globe, Cardiff, United Kingdom
Mar 24 @ Hare and Hounds, Birmingham, United Kingdom
Mar 26 @ UEA The Waterfront, Norwich, United Kingdom
Mar 27 @ The Welly 2, Hull, United Kingdom
Mar 28 @ Audio, Glasgow, United Kingdom
Mar 29 @ On The Rox, Dublin, Ireland
Mar 30 @ Manchester Academy 3, Manchester, United Kingdom
Mar 31 @ Jazz Cafe, London, United Kingdom
Apr 02 @ De Helling, Utrecht, Netherlands
Apr 09 @ Traffic Live Club, Roma Rm, Italy
Jun 13 @ Greenfield Festival, Interlaken, Switzerland
Weblinks: Facebook / Website / Twitter / Spotify / iTunes
Video for ‘Insomnia’