German progressive rockers Everon have revealed their dramatic new single “Guilty As Charged,” which is taken from ‘Shells,’ their first new album in 16 years! Shells’ will be released on 28 February via Music Theories Recordings. You can listen to “Guilty As Charged” HERE.
Talking about the new song Oliver Philipps says, “Lyrically the song is dealing with self-judgement/regrets, but even the lyrics mostly just come to mind, already while working on the music. There’s lines/phrases coming up naturally that just get stuck with a song, and in the end I just connect the dots, write it down and it’s finished. Not even I always know exactly what they’re about, some are very clear, others are more of a vibe/atmosphere that together with the music create the sphere I feel the song is supposed to have. It’s not an exact science. I am a rather rational person in normal life, but as a musician I rely 100% on intuition and inspiration. I don’t rationalize over it, because my experience is that I ruin it if I do.”
“The band never quit. It was a hiatus,” Philipps explains as he is sitting in his recording studio, talking about the new Everon Record. “Everon didn’t retire or anything, and we never even talked about it,” Philipps reasons. “I always wrote all the music and the lyrics. So that would mean if I didn’t do anything, we wouldn’t do anything. After ‘North’, it just didn’t happen.”
In December, the band announced their return after 16 years with their new song, “No Embrace.” “That made a good opening track because it is straight forward and accessible, it has a more positive energy than some of the other songs that are darker in tone or mood,” he adds about the first taster from the album.
‘Shells’, an album bristling with energy and verve, encapsulating everything that made Everon such a force to be reckoned with in the first place. With songs like the ebullient opener ‘No Embrace’ and the complex patterns of ‘Broken Angels’, the quirk of ‘Pinocchio’s Nose’ and the more heartfelt tones of ‘Monster’, or the epic 14-minute grandeur of closing track ‘Flesh’, Everon have rarely sounded so good. Defiantly old school packed full of progressive flourishes and Philipps’ innate sense of melody set the band apart from many of their peers all those years ago.
“I’ve been working as a producer with other artists through all the years,” explains Philipps, making it very clear those years away from Everon did indeed happen with his Space Lab Studio with Moschus, their drummer, working with artists such as Delain, Charlotte Wessels, progressive metallers Ad Infinitum and Wolverine, Italian progressive outfit THE ONEIRA, LEAH, Angel, and Imperia—the latter vocalists appear on the new album.
Trail of Tears, Imperia and Angel vocalist, Helena Iren Michaelsen, features on ‘Grace’, ‘Broken Angels’, ‘Guilty as Charged’, ‘Shells’ and ‘Children of The Earth’. “Helena happens to be one of my favourite singers and my favourite woman; she’s my wife. So it’s no surprise she appears on this album; it would have been weird if she didn’t,” he says.
Although a new Everon album is something to be celebrated, the road to ‘Shells’ has sadly been tainted by tragedy; during the recording, drummer Moschus died suddenly.
“It was completely out of the blue,” Philipps sighs. “He wasn’t sick or anything. He was just found dead. It was a cardiac arrest or one of these things. The reason I chose to finish the album at all was that he’d already recorded drums for eight of the songs. If it had happened half a year earlier, I wouldn’t have chosen to make an album. I’d been pondering over should I, shouldn’t I for quite some time.”
“Until We Meet Again” stands up as one of the most heart-on-sleeve songs on the album. The lyrics refer to the passing of Moschus. “This was the last song I wrote for this album, and while I was working on it, I got the news that our lifelong friend had died.”
Following Moschus’s passing, US drummer Jason Gianni entered the fray, guesting on the drum tracks that Moschus did not complete.
It’s been sixteen years and now we have ‘Shells’ – Twelve tracks of quality, highly melodic, progressively inclined rock for people to enjoy. It’s certainly good to have Everon back.
Track Listing
1. No Embrace
2. Broken Angels
3. Travels
4. Pinocchio’s Nose
5. Monster
6. Shells
7. Grace
8. Guilty as Charged
9. Children of the Earth
10. OCD
11. Until We Meet Again
12. Flesh
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