Eldar is the dark-ambient / martial project of Barcelona-based musician Marc Merinee and his female acolyte Merce Spica, whose prolific output under this moniker - an ancient Spanish word roughly translating as ‘epidemic’ if their bio is to be believed – debuted with the release of 2005’s Askataan opus on Spanish digital label Black Montanas. As it stands, this new album, their first release for Swedish powerhouse Cold Meat Industry, is in fact the sixth full-length the band have produced.

Its title, Sapere Aude, refers to a Latin phrase meaning ‘dare to know’ which was first coined by the Roman classical poet Horace back in the day but was most famously used by Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant in his 1784 essay ‘What is Enlightenment?’ to enjoin what he calls the ‘domestic cattle’ (the plebe, Horace would’ve said) to engage in the pursuit of reason by questioning the order of things as much as they possibly can. A vast program, indeed – and one, incidentally, which still holds very much true in this age of over-information and mass infotainment – that seems difficult, if not downright impossible, to translate into music. But seeing how most dark-ambient / martial acts have never shied away from using pompous titles (and Latin sure does sound kewl and kult-ish, if anything else), it’s not like Eldar can be held responsible for starting an ignominious trend here.

With the exception of the introduction, all of the tracks on offer are the fruit of a collaboration between Eldar and different like-minded, more or less known bands and projects (Der Blauer Reiter, The Wyrm, Argentum, Mazur, Plagiarism Is Art, to name but a few). Most of them hail from Spain or the Spanish-speaking world, a welcome introduction, in other words, for those of us, like yours truly, who know precious little about the music scene across the Pyreneans. Given the generally versatile nature of such cooperative works, I am glad to report that Sapere Aude flows rather admirably well and exhumes an overall sense of purpose frequently lacking when two separate projects decide to combine forces, let alone fifteen. That it should manage to achieve such an admirable sense of unity despite the vast array of guest musicians gracing truly is a remarkable feat that speaks volumes about the ability of Marc and Merce to harness the visions of their fellow musicians and make them their own.

More dark-ambient than martial, the music of Eldar follows in the vein of their earlier material, though more refined and focused (some of the older stuff sounds closer to first-period Mortiis than seems comfortable) and evidently benefits from the various talents that have been brought together. Overall, it weaves a sonic tapestry not too dissimilar from what Nordvargr did with some of the quieter, more contemplative Toroidh material, the distant drumming heard on some of the tracks here merely acting as a faint martial echo, some sort of gathering of the clouds over already darkened skies, and those looking for no-nonsense martial pump will be best looking elsewhere (Arditi’s latest, anyone?)

While not being the new sensation that it was hyped up to be for mere commercial reasons (‘This is classic old-school CMI music ?’ Puh-lease!), this latest effort from the Barcelonan duo nonetheless manages to strike enough of the proverbial chord to merit the attention of the industrial record-buying public. Hardly the stuff of legend (or year-end top-ten lists, for that matter) but, truth be told, not the most unnameable horror to have befallen CMI completists over the last few years.

www.coldmeat.se

www.myspace.com/eldarmerinee