Get To Know The Our Music - The NIOVEL Essentials Playlist
Sometimes it is a lot of fun to do the touristy thing and get an overview of where you are at before going off on an adventure on your own.
I never used to take any tours when I visited a new place but I changed my mind after going on a particularly fascinating guided tour around Bletchley Park when I visited London (wholeheartedly recommend btw).
The tour was short and sweet, covered some essentials, had some interesting trivia I would have had to look AGES for in a book and really helped me narrow down what I wanted to explore further.
Also, the tour guide was wearing the best trench coat and hat combo I have ever seen anywhere, deightful.
For your tour around NIOVEL land, I have picked two songs off of each album, some for style, some for fun, and some whimsy.
If you are coming here because you are currently on our newsletter quest, you will also find the answer to the first question here.
Enjoy!
Xx, Fiene
P.S. just keep scrolling…
Track 01 - Voice of The Deep
On every album, we have an inro track with a narrator and a song that comes right after. On the streaming services, they often get broken up and there is a little gap between the intro and the actual song but on the CDs it comes out absolutely perfectly.
“Voice Of The Deep” is the very first impression you get if you start listening at the very beginning. In terms of storytelling, it is one of my favourites, because I just LOVE underwater realms.
Narratively, it is connected to several other tracks like “The Emerald Divide”, “Flee”, and “What Sleeps In This Land”. The Voice of the Deep herself also makes cameo appearances in other tracks….like this upcoming pirate song…
Track 02 - Straight At ITs Face
Ah, our very first single! We actually posted a super rough (and now mildly embarrassing) draft of this to our facebook page on New Year’s Eve of 2020…because we wanted to still have a song out in 2020!
This is the song that started off the whole cascade that would end in four (as of July 2025) albums. We were so proud of this song, that we wanted to figure out how to get it on Spotify which then lead to “why don’t we make an album?”
Every time I listen to this, I get flashbacks to recording this in Simon’s living room, piece by piece over weeks. Thankfully, we got a lot better and more efficient at recording since then!
Track 03 - Darling Demigod
This song started because I asked Simon to “make something with a synth solo”. I have a huge, HUGE weak spot for synths so I try to sneak them in whenever I can. It also speaks to one of my guilty pleasures: the Eurovision Song Contest. I LOVE the Eurovision and if I had to submit a song for it right now, this would be it. It is short, sweet, and I can practically see the staging in my mind. The fireworks, the dress, ah
Other songs that please my love for synths are “Getting Away With it” and “Where The Railroad Ends”
Track 04 - What Sleeps In This Land
“What Sleeps In This Land” is one of our super dramatic songs, every album has at least one!
It also features one of our recurring guest vocalists, Hannah Bullock. She was our very first guest on “Flee” and she will make another appearance soon. We think of her whenever we need someone with real “queen of the night” energy because of her professional opera singer voice.
For this song, I actually wanted to sing the second half myself and had asked her to record some guide vocals for me because I was trying to find a more operatic sound in my own voice. When I received the guide vocals, they sounded so fantastic, that we decided to just keep them!
Track 05 - Never Strangers
“Never Strangers” is the piano ballad on album 3. It is also the title song…you see the pattern? The other title ballads are “The Emerald Divide”, “Long Way From Neverland”, and “Please Tell Me More”. I really like doing the softer ballads because I get to use my voice in the way that comes most naturally to me.
For this one, I had asked Nicole for some backing vocals and then decided that perhaps an ACTUAL duet would be really lovely. Duets are my secret favourite thing to do so I am never going to pass up an opportunity…and it came out really pretty!
Nicole has a really big talent for doing vocal arrangements so she has become my go-to for backing vocals and choirs. Also, sometimes, our voices sound very similar so she can function as a vocal body double when I have difficulties getting a pronunciation right! She is a life saver!
Track 06 - Supernova
Ok, time for the big one…literally. Supernova is one of our longest songs at 11:10 minutes and it is also inspired by a video game. We have at least one of these super long songs on every album - I like to think of them more like mini musicals rather than songs.
On the first album, the long track is “Ira’Nos”…back then we thought it was wise to split the song into parts…now we just let the full 15 minutes sit there, right in the track list. The other members of this category are “There Is No Escape”, “To War”, and “What Sleeps In This Land”.
Our guest vocalist for Supernova is Nassim who has been blessed with the voice of a really, really insistent Disney princess. We discovered her when Simon was working on a side project and have absolutely loved working with her ever since.
I love doing songs with her because her voice type challenges me to step up my game and get out of my soft folksy comfort zone!
Track 07 - Caravan
As of July 2025, “Caravan” is our latest single and, after “Alchemist”, the only song we have made an actual. music video for. I really, really nejoyed making the video because I got to wear a super nice ren faire outfit. My 12-year-old self would have LOVED that outfit.
The song has a super hummable, folksy vibe that comes super easily to me and lyrically, it is one of my first forays into more storytelling, I like to say that Simon’s songs are more like movies and mine are more like pictures. He has a lot of action, I have a lot of environment.
Caravan stil isn’t an action movie, but I think I am getting close to “something happens, yay”. Also, it seems that the topic is a recurring one for me. I tend to write about reemption (Ship That NEver Sailed, He Who) and trading things back and forth…
Track 08 - The Powers That Control You
This song is part of the “uptempo songs that kick you back into gear after a relaxing thingy”. Other notable entries in this category are “Tension Rising” and “A Little More”.
Just like with “Tension Rising”, we thought "Powers” might be the first single for the next album. That seems to happen whenever we come up with the power metal song first. Then we write more songs and usually change our minds (to “Alchemist” and “Caravan” respectively).
This is also the first song where I got to work with a REAL metal vocalist, Herbie Langhans. He did an amazing job with the choirs and honestly, he is all I really need to feel power metal.
Narratively, the song is also pretty special to me because it reminds me of my former job. Much like the person in the song, who knows wayyyyy too much about someone who came to power under dubious circumstances, being an accountant gives you a lot of insight into a company or a person…be good to your money minders!