This week I'll be doing a review on a newly popular band, from Perth, called Elora Danan, named after a fictional character from the 1988 fantasy Willow. This rock/ambient band is signed with Boomtown Records and has, in under a year, been invited to support many well known bands, such as New Found Glory, The Getaway Plan, Carpathian, I Killed The Prom Queen and Mindsnare. The 5 piece band consits of George Green - VOCALS, Isaac Kara - GUITAR/VOCALS, Ryan Smith GUITAR, Matthew Thomas - BASS and Jay Rendle O'Shea - DRUMS. Their latest album, 'We All Have Secrets' (Promo CD) was realeased Saturday the 18th of August, 07.
I first discovered this band at The Venue, Canberra, while they were supporting the biggest thing to come out of Melbourne since AFL (and possibly bigger), The Getaway plan. Elora Danan takes a different approach to the structure of the songs themselves, with the exception of the single ‘Check Your Smile’.
Track Listing
1. Who Are You? Stop Writing In My Diary!!!
2. Check Your Smile
3. A Place To Be Somebody
4. Parallel Universe
5. Before The Blackout
6. Thank God For Their Growth In Faith & Love
Each of these songs bring something different to the album and without a normal structure, have interesting and different elements, each song being around 4 minutes or longer. As proved, it seems that the public prefer a normal structured song with a verse, a bridge and a chorus, as 'Check Your Smile', became a hit single. I don't necessarily agree that 'Check Your Smile' is the best song on the album. In my opinion, 'Thank God For Their Growth In Faith & Love', is their best song for its alternative music, lyrics and structure. “As much as we are a poppy band we do have quite a dark, atmospheric, ambient sound. We do write longer songs, we’ve got darker sounding songs the structures aren’t quite the same,” George Green describes of their music. The Lyrics in each song are easy enough to figure out yet still detailed. "...they say silence is golden and im still waiting to see it shine", lyrics from 'Thank God For Their Growth In Faith & Love'.
Its an album that you can listen to anytime, whatever mood. Elora Danan are great live too and i wasn't surprised when i heard the album, guessing it to be good, and finding what I expected. I would encourage anyone to buy this album as I really Enjoy listening to them and the different style of music and lyrics, compared to more well-known bands, they possess.
By Jamie Nairn
