Customer Reviews

Creatures

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Once again, the sweet yet enchantingly ominous sounds of "Elf Power" are upon us. This is a top notch band featuring violin, cello and accordian to compliment guitar, keyboards, and a variety of percussion instruments. Assuming you get past the tiny privates and oversized boxing gloves, the bands fifth album is arguably its best: More mainstream to be sure, undoubtedly attracting a new circle of appreciative admirers and friends. But there is honestly no compromising of artistic principles here (perhaps it was time for a new direction anyway). Besides, with songs like "Let the Serpent Sleep" and "Everlasting Scream", our little family is certain to be blasting "Creatures" for the Halloween trick or treaters if they dare to approach the creaky front door. Buyer Beware: "The Modern Mind" is the "sleeper" song on this album: It slithers its way into the subconscious with a thoroughly haunting melody that serves as background during my daily affirmations and self hypnosis.

This year, bands like Wilco, The Strokes, and The White Stripes have gained much critical recognition and acclaim for their raw, simplistic approach to rock music. While what those bands do is certainly original to some degree and worthy of acknowledgement, this CD blows everything they've tried to accomplish out of the water. The songs on Creatures are pure rock, untainted by breakbeats or music videos. Each one is a masterpiece, although this album is meant to be played in sequence. I just bought this CD today, but I've already listened to it twice and anticipate a third listen before the end of the day. Trust me, this is most likely the best rock album released since Lp2 by Sunny Day Real Estate. Buy, download, or otherwise obtain this as soon as possible. You will not regret it. And if you don't believe me, I suggest dowloading ANY song from this album, especially "Things That Should Not Be" and "Unseen Hand."

It's criminal that almost no one knows about these guys.

I love this album and so has everyone else I have played it for. The lyrics are dark and trippy (true to Rieger's style), yet the music leaves me feeling upbeat. The only thing better than this album is seeing them live. Buy all of their albums. Go see the shows.

Elf Power is one of the greatest underground bands I've ever heard! Mixing old psychedelia with contemporary indie rock, they not only create interesting music but VERY catchy and fun songs (trust me, you'll be humming or singing the choruses in your head even after the first listen). Andrew Rieger's vocals are very soothing, dreamy and fun to listen to (more so here than on "A Dream In Sound"). The lyrics aren pretty good (it's a concept album, though) and are relatively easy to remember which helps if you're trying to sing a long. Basically every song on this album is great so it's hard to list highlights. If you're into indie or psychedelic rock at all (or I suppose even just rock!) I can't possibly see how you won't like this album. Other great albums by this band are "A Dream In Sound" and "Walking With The Beggar Boys" (though that one is *slightly* worse). HIGHLY recommended!

Highlights include:
the whole album!

No words can describe how great this album is. Entrancing!

Ever since their 1994 debut 'Vainly clutching at phantom limbs' Elf Power has been growing as a band and the compositions by Andrew Rieger have become more and more proper songs. Their first album (and EP) seemed merely sketches of things to come, cumulating in the 1999 CD 'A dream in sound', until now their best and most consistent album.
Until now that is. After two listenings the 'Creatures' CD seems to be full of beautiful little pop-gems, songs that get stuck in your head and you can't seem to get rid off (not that you want to). It begins with 'Let the serpent sleep', together with 'The Creature' one of the best songs they made in years.
People who hear Elf Power for the first time might be a bit anxious to embrace their music, especially because of the lack of variety in Andrew Rieger's voice. But after a while that monotonous, sweet little voice mesmerizes your ears and your hooked.
It's great to see them team up with W. Cullen Hart of Olivia Tremor Control/Circulatory System fame. The connection with the Elephant 6 collective is how I discovered Elf Power, the eclecticism of this collective being their strength, the stigma being their weakness. It doesn't do Elf Power just to put them under the Elephant 6 collective. They're a band who matured over the years, always true to their own sound and ideas, a strength hopefully to be a source of more beauty to come over the coming years.

This album is absolutely amazing i love it. its about the best album to come out in the last million years. Go get it now!

On Elf Power's fifth release Creatures, the Athens, GA psychedelic rock group streamlines their sound. In doing so, they've also strangled the creative urges that fueled their dark tales and Grimm-like fables. There's a five-song stretch mid-CD, from "Palace of the Flames" to "Three Seeds", that indulges their hookcraft and melancholy to make one long for the stellar EP this could have been. Otherwise, Andrew Rieger's surreptitious tunes, complete with serpents and ominous birds and other fantastic images, fall flat. Psychedelic visions represent best with psychedelic music - making them sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, sometimes pretentious, but never tedious.