Children's cartoon soundtrack-meets Celtic/Irish/Pagan folk-meets-black metal on the latest from Cruachan called The Morrigan's Call. This Irish band have been around now for over a decade, and The Morrigan's Call is their fifth release. What they do they do well, which is create a constant battle between the folk and metal elements using male & female vocals, fiddles, mandolins, flute, and crushing electric guitars. There's an air of goofiness to some of the tunes, hense the "cartoon" reference, especially on "Shelob", a great upbeat piece with child-like arrangements that are really addicting, mostly brought on by the folk instruments. Other songs have an almost Jethro Tull/Fairport Convention meets Korpiklaani touch to them, like "Coffin Ships", "The Brown Bull of Cooley", and "The Great Hunger". However, if getting down with some fun Irish folk metal jigs sounds like the plan, you can't go wrong with "The Old Woman In The Woods" and the alluring title track. Overall, things don't get too heavy, but when the band does crank out the metal, as they do on "Ungoliant", " CuChulainn", and "Teir Abhail Ru", they prove to be a formidable unit, mixing the clean female vocals with aggressive black metal growls, while the acoustic instruments mix in with the thunderous guitar riffs and pounding rhythms.
This is an enjoyable release, and should appeal to fans of Korpiklaani, Blackmore's Night, and Finntroll. It's not everyday that black metal and folk are combined with the amount of decication that Cruachan have provided over the years, and on The Morrigan's Call they might have just given us one of the best examples of the art form.
Track Listing
01. Shelob
02. The Brown Bull Of Cooley
03. Coffin Ships
04. The Great Hunger
05. The Old Woman In The Woods
06. Ungoliant
07. The Morrigan's Call
08. Teir Abhail Ru
09. Wolfe Tone
10. The Very Wild Rover
11. CuChulainn
12. Diarmuid And Grainne
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