German metal webzine www.sounds2move.de is exclusively premiering audio samples from ELIS' upcoming album, Griefshire, at this location. As previously reported, Elis will release their new album, Griefshire, in Europe on November 24th and in North America on January 16th through Napalm Records. The track list is as follows: 'Tales From Heaven Or Hell', 'Die Stadt', 'Show Me The Way', 'Brothers', 'Seit Dem Anbeginn Der Zeit', 'Remember The Promise', 'Phoenix From The Ashes', 'How Long', 'Innocent Hearts', 'Forgotten Love', 'The Burning', 'A New Decade', 'Heaven And Hell' (bonus track on digipack).

Griefshire is a concept album based on a story written by vocalist Sabine Dünser, who suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on Friday, July 7th during rehearsal and passed away the following day in hospital. She was 29 years old. The concept outline is available here as a pdf file.

BW&BK; recently hooked up with ELIS bassist Tom Saxer recently to discuss the band's forthcoming album, Griefshire. Saxer commented on the band's current state and the aftermath following Dünser's death.

"At the moment everything is going well," Saxer reveals. "We're okay now. I don't know how to explain it, but when it happened we couldn't believe it. It took a few days to realize what had actually happened and then it really hurt us. Recording was finished when Sabine died, only the mixdown wasn't finished. Every song on the album is how it was recorded. It was very hard for Alex (Krull/producer); he couldn't work on the CD for a few days afterwards, which is one of the reasons the album won't hit the stores until November."
"We did think about stopping the band," he adds. "During the first few weeks we thought everything was over. We couldn't see any light on the horizon. When we finally realized the situation we sat down together to discuss what we would do. There was no question that we would release the album. Only making the decision to continue was hard. Even now it's not easy but life goes on and we have to continue. This is what Sabine would want."

With regards to finding a new singer, Saxer say the search is still on.

"We've had a lot of responses - not as much as Nightwish, of course (laughs) - but there are a few singers we've been considering. At this point we haven't decided on anybody. We don't want a replacement for Sabine, we're searching for a new singer who is her own person and she'll be able to sing in her own way. We want to bring the band feeling back, not have a band and a singer, so we're taking our time. It's hard to play the songs without Sabine there, but we have accept things the way they are. It will never be the same and we know that."