The only thing that’s sure for the Norwegians is that 2016 was a really stormy year. The singer’s divorce (according to the band)/ sacking (according to Liv) after thirteen years of presence caused quite a stir to Leaves’ Eyes and mainly to their fans who haven’t stopped the slating ever since. And if that reminds a lot of the case between Queensryche and Geoff Tate four years ago, the release of this E.P can’t help bringing back the re-release of Ozzy Osbourne’s first two albums.
To go back to the presentation of “Fires In The North” and to make it clear, this E.P includes one new sont, the title track. It’s quite good and its acoustic version is also included. The rest three songs are re-recordings of “Edge Of Steel”, “Sacred Vow” and “Swords In Rock” with the new singer, all from their latest album ‘King Of Kings” which came out a year ago. Elina Siirala, seems like a very good singer capable of taking over. The thing is though that Liv Kristine isn’t a singer who can be easily replaced.
The best argument on that is her walkout from Theater Of Tragedy in 2003 and what happened to that great band after that.
The only thing that justifies the release of this album is for the people to hear Elina (and they must hear her, she is great) in view of the band’s current American tour .What the rest of us could do is to wait for something more complete.