Cruachan

The Morrigan's Call

Written by: PP on 12/12/2006 13:14:28

Most Irish or Ireland-influenced bands focus on writing folk-influenced punk rock with lyrics revolving around who can down the most pints in x amount of time on any given day of the week. But Cruachan isn't your ordinary Irish band either. Just imagine The Dropkick Murphy's or Flogging Molly playing heavy metal: "The Morrigan's Call" by Cruachan is probably how it would sound like.

The band members are multitalented to say the least. Fronted by a female vocalist with a strong, angelic voice taking care of most of the vocal duties, the band's other vocalist Keith Fay adds melodic death metal style shrieks and grunts while playing electric & acoustic guitar, keyboards, bouzouki, mandolin, banjo, bodhran and percussion on the album. John Ryan doesn't fall short either, by having fiddle, violin, madocello, and bowed bass on his list on top of the banjo. Add onto the list the guests and their instruments (Irish flute, tin whistles, low whistle, recorder, Irish harp) and you'll have a good idea of how "The Morrigan's Call" shapes up in terms of sound. But lets not forget this is still heavy metal - the solo are blazing, death metal style grunts and shrieks support the silkier voice of Karen Gilligan, and blast beats can be found on almost all songs. But as you can imagine, the inclusion of the traditional Irish instruments makes many of the songs sound like they were written with tongue-in-cheek manner.

Take "Shelob", for instance. I'm not sure if it should be taken seriously, considering it combines fiddle and heavy metal, grunts and soft vocals and bouncy riffs, which together make the song sound like something straight from St Patrick's day after a good couple of pints. Add in the celtic mythodology in lyrics, and you've got one hell of an unfocused mess of instrumental virtuoso meets roughness of traditional heavy metal, leaving you pondering and into the conclusion that you don't know what to think. Expect, like all irish bands, that it's great fun to listen to.

Download: Shelob, The Brown Bull Of Cooley, The Old Woman In The Woods
For the fans of: Floggin Molly, The Dropkick Murphys, Zandelle, Korpiklaani, Finntroll
Listen: Samples @ official website

Release date 17.11.2006
AFM Records
Provided by Target ApS

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