The Eden House - Songs For The Broken Ones

Four years on from the supergroup's last full-length offering (Half Life) The Eden House release their third album, 'Songs For The Broken Ones'. With the band's revolving door line-up of collaborators joining the core duo of Stephen Carey and Tony Pettitt (Fields of the Nephilim) every release sees the band's trademark mixture of psychedelic, progressive and ethereal gothic rock get a shake up and yield new and exciting elements on every track. Album number three is no exception. Featuring guest appearances from: Monica Richards (Faith & The Muse), Lee Douglas (Anathema), Kelli Ali (Sneaker Pimps), Simon Hinkler (The Mission), Bob Loveday (Penguin Cafe Orchestra) the album is once again a melting pot of genres and styles.

Kicking off with the Spanish lyrics and Latin atmospheres of 'Verdades (I Have Chosen You)' the band subtly frame these around a steady gothic rock core that leads nicely into the more ethereal gothic of 'One Heart' that provides a nice continuation on from previous releases. Songs such as '12th Night', 'The Ghost Of You', 'Ours Again', 'Words And Deeds', 'Let Me In', 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang', and 'Second Skin' provide the album with its strongest gothic credentials with the haunting jangle of guitars paired with the always identifiable bass style and sinister yet beautiful atmospheres. But the band still find plenty of room to manoeuvre with songs such 'Misery', 'It's Just A Death', 'The Ardent Tide' with their respective heavy incorporation of folk and trip-hop elements into the mix. As you'd expect from the band, they've taken their time to create and put this album together and once again the production is absolutely on point throughout, balancing the haunting feminine vocals with the earthy bass lines and progressive elements to create a stunningly rich whole.

'Songs For The Broken Ones' may not delve into as desperately experimental waters as the first album and EPs did, but it doesn't really need to anymore. The band have found their sound and with the progressive mind set running throughout every track they can be more subtle and sly with their playfulness to create a wider scope than putting in say a synth-heavy track purely for the sake of it.

The Eden House are a band that all other gothic rock bands should aspire to. The veteran skills of the core members and their collaborators are beyond repute and the scope of their work is only matched by their lack of ego. The result is always something that pushes the limits of what modern gothic rock can be, and this is no exception.

 

The Eden House - Half Life

The mega-collective mind that is The Eden House returns with the long-awaited sophomore album 'Half Life', the follow up to 2009's impressive début long-player 'Smoke And Mirrors'. The band blends a diverse palette of styles and influences that encompass gothic, progressive, trip-hop and roots music into dark psychedelic rock which has set The Eden House apart from the crowd very quickly. And with a range of well-received albums and EPs to the band's name already, the bar is already set very high for their second album.

Once again the core of the band, comprised of Stephen Carey, Tony Pettitt and Andy Jackson is joined by a variety of vocalists including Lee Douglas (Anathema) and Monica Richards (Faith And The Muse) as well as guest musicians, such as Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music) and Simon Hinkler (The Mission). All of who give the band a uniquely wide-ranging appeal and talents to really push the boundaries of what rock music can be. The album opens with the lead single ‘Bad Men’, a trip-hop heavy mixture of driving guitars, grooving bass and subtly hypnotic feminine vocals which shows the band at their commercial best. Across songs such as 'Indifference', 'The Empty Space', 'City Of Goodbyes' and 'First Light' the band bring together the mystical elements of The Fields Of The Nephilim, the introspection of Pink Floyd and the avant garde bleakness of Portishead into a strangely uplifting formula. While the likes of 'Wasted On Me' and 'The Tempest' give the album a rawer edge with their focuses on strong rhythms.

As you would expect from a band with a pedigree such as this, the production and mix are absolutely faultless. Their instruments and vocals ebb and flow into each other with such ease and grace that the whole album feels as though it has been painted rather than performed. The Eden House's body of work is fast becoming the mark by which to measure modern gothic rock. The collective's scope and ambition is high and they have more than enough talent with which to realise it. The band do feel somewhat comfortable on 'Half Life' and the album's formula doesn't really deviate into any truly experimental directions, which is a shame as they are more than capable. But having said that, the band's penchant for creating simply sublime music is beyond reproach.

The Eden House - Bad Men

The Eden House has seen a host of guests across their album 'Smoke & Mirrors' and two EPs 'The Looking Glass' and 'Timeflows' including Monica Richards (Faith & The Muse), Amandine Ferrari (Banished), Lee Douglas (Anathema) Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music) and Simon Hinkler (The Mission). The result each time has been magic. Therefore The Eden Project's latest single, ‘Bad Men (OnTheirWayToDoBadThings)’, has a lot to live up to already. The band immediately puts any worries to bed though, as it becomes evident from the initial bars of the trip hop tinged, guitar driven A-side that they are only going from strength-to-strength. A mellow blend of hypnotic female vocals, trippy electronic embellishments, grooving bass line and some sublime guitar work give this song a strong, driving pace that is at the same time subtle in its execution. The B-side 'Survival Instinct' is again subtle and hypnotic, but instead of the driving rock underbelly of the A-side, it opts instead for a more haunting ambient-electronic style for the main bulk of the song before breaking out the guitars and drums for a big outro. If this single is anything to go by The Eden House's album, 'Half Life', will be another classic slice of progressive gothic rock.

Smoke And Mirrors

The debut album created by The Eden House project based around core members Tony Pettitt (Fields Of The Nephilim, Rubicon, NFD) and Stephen Carey (Adoration, This Burning Effigy, NFD), which really is more of a "super group" than a band. The Eden House however, are more than just the music; they are the myriad of guest musicians and vocalists who are seamlessly stitched together by Stephen Carey and mastered & engineered by Andy Jackson (studio gremlin of T’Floyd). The pieces are partly worn, but never elongated, very detailed and exciting arrangements, often lascivious especially due to the emphasis on very delicate and pleasantly restrained vocals. With vocals by Monica Richards (Faith And The Muse), Julianne Regan (All About Eve), Evi Vine (Eve Vine Band) and Amandine Ferrari, gradually, you’ll sink into the music and find your-self torn between loud, harsh rugged guitar and then gentler pieces which all have a driving intensity that stretches throughout the whole album. Smoke And Mirrors is an album that stands out, and whoever wants to hear Gothic Rock from a quieter side and likes to listen to bands like Faith And The Muse, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil or Kate Bush, are certainly in very good hands. One of the best albums of 2009.

Naiades

One knows Monica Richards' music not just from her unmistakeable style but from the heart she puts in her work. Her album, Naiades (named after mythological Greek sea-nymphs), is a melt-in-your-ear masterpiece, a perfect mix of strength and vulnerability in both sound and vision. Monica says, "The focus of Naiades is really about water…I feel I have undergone a Sea Change, though I'm the same on the surface, I've changed profoundly from within. Thus I focused on its power, its delicacy, its long-lasting permanence, its strength, its depth; and the artworks also based on water creatures." Monica described her first solo album, Infrawarrior, as electro-tribal focusing on "the power within" as well as songs based on Matriarch almythological themes. With her album, Naiades, we can see that the connection between Woman and Nature is still a prominent theme in Monica's work...Monica has truly come into her own as an artist, adding new elements of her own tribal style to harder rock anthems and neoclassical work, creating an all new level of expression, and at times, all the more personal, especially in songs like "We Go On" and "Lureinlay".

Press information by label

Time Flows

This collaborative band, formed in 2008 by Stephen Carey (This Burning Effigy, Adoration) and Tony Pettitt (Fields of the Nephilim, Rubicon) had created quite a stir in the scene by combining elements of progressive metal, trip hop and psychedelia with beautiful ethereal vocal melodies sung by several guest singers like Monica Richards (Faith And The Muse), Julianne Regan (All About Eve), Evi Vine and Amandine Ferrari. The first track: "Neversea" is a perfect hit, much in the style of debut album opening track "To Believe In Something". The beat is fast, with glittering guitars à la Mission/Fields and Valenteen, the new "resident" female singer, fits perfectly with a voice that evokes a little bit Julianne Regan and Christa Belle (Hungry Lucy). Simon Hinkler from The Mission is guest on guitars on this track. "Into The Red" has a slower beat, more trip hop-ish and features vocals by Valenteen and Amandine Ferrari. The structure and melodies sound a bit like "God's Pride" or "Sin" from "Smoke & Mirrors". Amandine's enchanting voice is amazing, bringing as usual such powerful emotions. The song ends with a heavenly duet of the two women singing wonderfully in thirds. "The Only One" is a slow and haunting song, in which Valenteen shows great melodic talent both in low- and high-pitched tones. The title track "Timeflows" is a long track (more than 9 minutes) in the style of the progressive tracks from Fields Of The Nephilim and it is no surprise to hear an intro with Tony Pettitt's typical staccato bass riff (remember Psychonaut?)... The song develops into a dark and hypnotic sonic landscape dominated by Valenteen's and Meghan-Noel Evans' voices until a break comes with strange ghostly voices and sudden shouts: scary... Finally the drums of the excellent Simon Rippin return for the final chorus and a paroexistic ending. The instrumental "Timeflows Part 2" allows us to stay a bit further inside the dream...

This EP is produced by Stephen Carey, Tony Pettitt and Andy Jackson (who worked with Pink Floyd): needless to say that the sound is huge, clear, powerful and epic. Can't wait! So, if you like All About Eve, Evi Vine, Fields Of The Nephilim, the Mission and this kind of music, you should rush and buy this EP!

Philippe BLACKMARQUIS 21/02/2012

To Believe In Someone (New Link)

The Eden House are built around the core duo of guitarist Stephen Carey and bassist Tony Pettitt of Fields of the Nephilim together with drummer Simon Rippin of The Nephilim, NFD and Red Sun Revival. Founded in 2007 the core trio eventually came together with the self-financed MP3 only “single” release in 2009 titled All I See Is Red. Long lost in the static of the interweb background noise the two track single features a who’s who guest list of the then Londonesque Goth scene with members of The Nefilim, Last Rites, Rubicon, Julianne (All About Eve) Regan and token LA hipster Monica (Faith & The Muse) Richards. The single features a remixed (Redshifted) version of To Believe In Something, the opening track on the debut album Smoke And Mirrors, and Freakshow a track that’s never been issued in any other format. Both tracks follow the Eden House methodology of wispy female vocals, sharp guitar driven choruses and grandiose swirling of folky rock dresses. What makes Freakshow stand out is the twin bass work of Peter Gorritz and Tony Pettitt. This is much heavier than their debut album Smoke And Mirrors and is well worth a quick download, for research purposes obviously.