Short Reviews [Cruachan - 2007 - "The Morrigan's Call"]

CRUACHAN is an Irish metal band with a long history, formed way back in 1992. “The Morrigan's Call” is their fifth studio album, released in 2006 in Europe and the next year in the USA. Musically the band themselves call their brand of metal Celtic Metal. The best way to describe the music for me is that it is a mix of traditional Gaelic music and classic heavy metal, with some flavouring from modern black metal. There are really three types of songs here: a few shorter songs that are pure folk music, then songs that go back and forth between folk segments and metal sections, and finally there are songs that mix both styles at once. The metal-laden arrangements have some variations to them: some moves are clearly influenced by Black Sabbath, some are closer to classic 80's heavy metal, and some are close to modern black metal. The vocals are the main provider of the latter element, though the changes in style lead to some variation in vocal delivery as well. Mixing folk music and metal in this way is not an easy task. There are quite a few bands that have done the regular folk metal aspect of this previously, but adding elements from black metal to that mix isn't an ordinary event. Cruachan do pull it off though; they manage to mix all these styles quite well, though personally I like them best when playing pure folk and least when they leap into the black metal segments. Still, most of the music here is highly intriguing, so fans of Skyclad and generally anyone fond of folk metal should find this CD a worth listen.

OMB: February 17, 2008