Ember Sea – Au Contraire

Ember Sea
Au Contraire
Green Bronto Records
December 10, 2021
Playing time: 44:14

The pandemic is causing a lot of frustration for musicians, promoters, club managers and recording studios. And probably also for a lot of boredom. So how can one make good use of the concert-free or concert-poor time? You get together, hygiene rules permitting, and work on new songs or album productions. That also works online. That’s probably how it happened with Ember Sea. Normally, the musicians from Hanover (Lower Saxony) offer a mixture of Metal, Gothic and Rock. After more or less convincing cover singles, they have now released an acoustic album. This is nothing new for the band, as the EP “Pure: Unplugged – Vol. 1” with three acoustic songs was already released in 2014.

With acoustic CDs, you often have the effect that the instrumental accompaniment of most songs is structured similarly. It’s not much different on “Au Contraire”. But there are one or two exceptions. Like “The Ones”, for example. Here the band succeeds in achieving a rocky atmosphere. The guitar solo and the percussion also contribute to this. But “Dawning” is a typical unplugged song. But that also has its good points. Singer Eva Gerland can show her skills without having to fight against roaring guitars and booming drums. Especially in the very ballad-like first half. To Ember Sea’s credit, they also manage to sprinkle in other splashes of colour. For example, “To Atlantis” is quite Jazz heavy. So I could appropriately read something like “Jazzlantik” on the download page. Here Eva can show that she also feels comfortable with the lower tones. And later she can show off her powerful voice well. But with “Heather” and “A Lie” it goes back to classic unplugged realms. The latter has a folk touch to it. This is followed by the three songs from 2014 from the EP already mentioned (“Coffin Heart”, “Dreh Dich”, “Storm”). Yes, back then they still sang partly in German. I still like these three the most. I don’t know if the instrumental version of “To Atlantis” is really necessary. From my point of view, it’s not needed.

What should I say? Not bad. But I have also heard better acoustic albums. I’ m sure “Au Contraire” won’t make it into my record collection. But die-hard fans of the band should definitely give this disc a chance.

Ember Sea The Ones (Acoustic) (Official Music Video) : https://youtu.be/yBnjfva_6cA

Lineup:

Enrico Mier – Drums
Stefan Santag – Guitars
Pablo J. Tammen – Bass
Dirk Marquardt – Keyboards
Eva Gerland – Vocals

Track list:

• The Ones
• Dawning
• To Atlantis
• Heather
• A Lie
• Coffin Heart*
• Dreh Dich*
• Storm*
• To Atlantis (Instrumental)

From the EP “Pure: Unplugged – Vol. 1” (2014)