Four Island

We're in the final four, folks, which means the going's getting tough and the reviews are getting more intense. So to speak. Today's album comes from a beautiful enchantress that I've already discussed this week: Emilie Autumn. You may have noticed I've put the album art to the right instead of letting you bask in its glory below. The reason for this is that there doesn't actually exist a high-definition copy of this album art. Why? This is a very old album.

Enchant was released some time in either 2002 or 2003 (it is legitimately unknown) on Emilie's own record label, Traitor Records, which no longer exists. Not only is this album old, but it's also out of print. My inability to procure this CD in a physical form is perhaps why it took me so long to listen to it---as stated before, I listened to Opheliac in early 2010, and yet I only finally wised up and gave Enchant a listen a little less than a month ago. Regardless, it's become one of my favorite albums of the year!

Enchant is different from Opheliac. Enchant is very different compared to Opheliac. Enchant shows a side of Emilie that is hidden by her insanity in Opheliac, it shows a side capable of love, a side entrenched with beauty and entrapped in a mystical world of faeries and fairy tales. This album is legitimately a story: the first track is labelled as a prologue and the last track is labelled as an epilogue, and they introduce/end the album so perfectly.

It's hard to choose favorite songs from such a wonderful album, but I've whittled it down to three. Epilogue: What If was the song that attracted me to the album to begin with, and when I heard it I was so shocked because it didn't sound like any Emilie Autumn I knew. She sings about freedom and independence and she warbles and she harmonizes and it's simply astounding. It also feels like a goodbye. It is the perfect end to a perfect album, but what's the use of talking about the end when I've barely talked about the middle?

One of my other favorite songs is Juliet, which is obviously named after a famous Shakespearian character (which she returned to when naming Opheliac!), and in this song Emilie serenades us with her violin and sings about true, star-crossed love. The chorus is so catchy and yet moving, and she concludes the song with a violin rendition of Greensleeves. If you like her violin, you're in luck because she has a whole album of her playing the violin, but that's for another time.

Then, of course, there's Heard It All, the most hardcore song on the album and the one that most reminds me of Opheliac. The uptempo cymbal sets the mood for the strangest and most intimidating song about suffocation I've ever heard, and the raw choruses are so singable that this song has been on replay for days.

Other mentionable songs include Rapunzel, a harpsichord-y melody about persistence, Ever, a slow piano ballad about eternal love, Castle Down, an uptempo piano song about savagery, and Prologue: Across The Sky, a dark space-like musical inferno. Of course, every song is notable, but what I'm trying to point out here is that Enchant encompasses a very broad range of musical styles. This album is not monotonous, but neither does it sound confused. It flows like a story, and what a beautiful story it is.

Enchant is a fantastic album, and it in fact has quickly become one of my favorite albums ever, even though I only first listened to it a few weeks ago. I would definitely recommend it to a first time Emilie Autumn listener. As to the age-old question of "Enchant or Opheliac?" all I can say is they're both amazing albums and it's a crime to try to compare them because they're both so different. This is Starla, signing off until tomorrow, when we'll take a look at an album the Earth was never meant to see.