Everon
North

We are at the seventh studio album for the German band led by guitarist, singer, and keyboardist Oliver Philips, and the show that Everon is about to deliver with this new album, released in April 2008, is anything but predictable. The work is a continuous succession and alternation of elements that have characterized the band and innovative traits, but that unmistakably speak Everon.

Upon first listening to this album, it really seems to have in hand so many pieces and elements of hundreds of groups put together to generate something not so different from the usual. So much so that at first listen, it might even seem like something already heard, even obvious. But by delving deep into the piece, one can discern accuracy in the compositions, a refinement in the sounds, in the drafting of lyrics, and even in the arrangement of the songs that is unparalleled. Each track calls to mind the previous one in something resembling a work divided into arias.

But the thing that really strikes is the emotion. The album is overflowing with emotion. The technique has been abandoned at all costs, and almost entirely the prog realm, except for a few hints, space is left for sophisticated melodies implanted in a simpler layout. Everon seems to want to say everything at every moment, so much so that it's really difficult to understand the sensation felt when giving in to listening, so unique is the musical proposition. The album is entirely covered by a sort of veiled melancholy, masterfully expressed by the cover artwork. In the same song, Everon manages to let us fall into the deepest oblivion, induce us to tears, and then make us immediately soar towards salvation with great skill. The calm and gentle voice of Oliver is persuasive in leading us into his fantastic worlds, into visions and stories told with extreme skill by an adept pen, and meanwhile like the pied piper, the band drags the ear along, almost making us unaware of the passage of minutes, tracks, hours. The mind remains glued, trembling and waiting to know what will come next. Never a dull, trivial, predictable moment. So Everon shows that they have not lost the creativity that has distinguished them so far in their musical path, proving that they still have a lot, a lot to say.

Some examples that summarize the soul of "North" can be found in the opening track "Hands", a ballad of irresistible singability, dedicated to our hands, molders of our reality, an instrument of joy and pain at the same time, in "From where I stand", a flag of lost loves, which make way for fear in our hearts, and in the title track "North", in my opinion, the most fascinating track of the entire album, which seems to carry us to a night by the sea, alone with our thoughts, anxieties, and hardships, contemplating the vastness of our inner horizon. Amid gusts of wind hitting us frontally and an untiring ocean waiting with us for the arrival of the sun, the soul gets lost among the sweet notes in the ear, while the gaze shifts towards North.