“Beautiful Ashes” by Eowyn

Sometimes, I’ll get an album just for one or two tracks, and do not realize how incredible the rest of the album is for months.

“Beautiful Ashes” by Eowyn is one such album. Fail-Safe was a track that I found by listening to ChristianRock.net. I got the album, threw Fail-Safe on a playlist and called it a day. Not the playlist. The playlist is called Modern Christian Music.  Now, a couple months later, I’m beginning to realize how talented Eowyn is.

Eowyn is the performance name of Rebecca Krueger, who shares a middle name with the Lord of the Rings warrior.

 The album starts with the roaring guitars of “You Had To” bringing us Eowyn at full power. “More Than Yesterday” is a hauntingly slow song that warms up quickly, but relies heavily on drums and keyboard.

Some days we just feel absolutely defeated or like things just aren’t going to work out. “Dream” is the perfect song for that day. It is a song of inspiration, a heavy rock sound with the background of a classical violin. Eowyn reminds us to “Dream / just dream / though your worlds turned to grey / and your answers delayed”

Sooner than one would expect, the album comes to a chilling close with “Music Box.” A melodic tune with a music box-like sound, this song about the human desire to be loved manages to rock without guitars, while fully showing the Eowyn’s vocal range.

All-in-all this is a fantastic album. I would highly recommend it to anyone, especially if you loved Evanescence.