How much does it harm a band to be away for such a long time? When a favourably received album, released in 2008 isn’t followed up until 2025, will fans still remember the band when a new release eventually does emerge, particularly if the band in question isn’t exactly a household name to begin with? Or, will this lengthy gap in their recording career be critical in halting the band’s momentum? These are issues Everon will soon be grappling with.
Despite being quite prolific in their early days, Everon released seven albums between 1995 and 2008 .. the last seventeen years had seen a resounding silence until news broke late in 2024, when the band revealed details of a new single, ‘No Embrace,’ to be followed by a new album, Shells, in February 2025. However, mainman Oliver Phillips was quite sanguine about the whole situation, claiming the band had never quit, and the absence of band activity was simply a ‘hiatus.’
Well, whatever, Everon are back with a new album, one which offers an interesting set of moods and grooves and with a real feel for seventies prog. The album consists of twelve tracks including four of less than five minutes. All leading up to the last track, the powerful ‘Flesh,’ which runs to over fourteen minutes. You like your prog lengthy? This one’s for you. Beginning quietly with acoustic guitar and piano, the band kicks in after a couple of minutes and it becomes a monster of a track with some fine playing, which includes some scintillating guitar work.
Shells is something of an almost defiantly old-school prog album, albeit one with a discernible sense of melody and with subtle key and time changes. The lyrics, however, lean towards dark thoughts and moods and, indeed, the melancholy was aided by the sudden death of drummer Christian ‘Moschus’ Moos, who’d completed eight tracks before his sad passing. Jason Gianni sat in on drums to help complete the album. Phillips was in the process of writing the track ‘Until We Meet Again’ when news of Moschus’s death reached him, and the song lyrics reflect on his passing .. “you didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d just disappear.”
The lyrics focus on the darker side of life, with feelings of hurt and regret woven through. ‘Monster’ deals with a son refusing to accept the changes in his father and, no matter what, how he’s still a monster for all he’s done. ‘Pinocchio’s Nose’ is a thinly veiled attack on someone in power (Trump?) with real bile in the lyrics ..“you’ll go straight to hell, which is where you belong” they sing. Released as a single, ‘No Embrace’ opens the album in a very positive style and shows, after a lengthy lay-off, the band still had its chops, which they also suggest on the Nightwish-influenced ‘Guilty As Charged’.
Band mainman Oliver Phillips has expended considerable time and creativity into this new release, and it’s a quietly impressive album which grows on you with each listen. There’s no denying Oliver Phillips can write, play and arrange, but his vocals don’t sit right with this reviewer. His wife Helena Michaelsen improved every song she contributed to.
