Review Summary: The tales and folklore of Gaelic Scotland come to life - and death
Following folk-inspired black metal takes you to all corners of the globe and the latest anticipated release comes from Falkirk based Cnoc an Tursa (Scottish Gaelic for "Hill of the Standing Stone"). With previous LPs in 2014 (“The Giants of Auld”) and 2017 (“The Forty Five”), it has taken 9 years to arrive at “A Cry For The Slain” and as the title suggests the record is an “evocative tribute to the history” and those fallen in defense of the homeland. But as explored in the three quarters of an hour laid down, Cnoc An Tursa has tentacles in all manner of Scottish Gaelic tales and folklore.
The opening naval ballad “Na Fir Ghorma” introduces a songstress beckoning the mythical blue skinned grey faced sea creatures, before this subconsciousness wails into another haunting with “The Caoineag”, a booming melodic black metal epic. Whilst the folk tale of this banshee and “the massacre of Glen Coe” hit hard, it’s the pummeling extended blast beat driven riff to finish that hits hardest. One of the more incredible moments in metal this year.
The band core of Alan Buchan (guitars), Rene McDonald Hill (vocals, guitars, keyboards) and Bryan Hamilton (drums) with guest vocalist Karinne Tursa (all wee good Scottish names), have emerged from a highland dormancy with a vengeance and energy with rollicking folk meloblack songs like “Cailleach and The Guardians of The Seven Stones”, an ode to the Queen of Winter Cailleach. There are guitar accents here and elsewhere that take me to Sgaile which is of no surprise considering Tony Dunn was a former member of Cnoc An Tursa with the Scottish instincts flavouring both works. This is especially felt in the dangerous “Baobhan Sith” where the band employ Karinne Tursa’s clean vocals as a counter to the harsh storyteller, a role Dunn played in “The Forty Five”, with further parallels in the progressive flirtations throughout this and other tracks. The lyrical matter is that of the female vampire fairy in the folklore of the Scottish Highlands, a benevolent accompaniment to the preceding Cailleach. Where “The Giants of Auld” and “The Forty Five” trod Gaelic land with a more atmospheric black metal disposition comparable to Winterfylleth, “A Cry For The Slain” embodies a more accessible and melodic arc with a focus on individual songs.
The traversing of the countryside continues with next stop at Ben MacDhui, the highest peak of the Cairngorms mountain range where the reclusive beast “Am Fear Liath Mòr” is said to dwell, the music more folk than black to suit this particular encounter - and beast’s recoil - “in the blaze of my spirit, I stand as one”. More patriotic than William Wallace, Cnoc An Tursa’s glowing passions and buoyant atmospherics for “Alba in my Heart” sit pride of place in “A Cry For The Slain” but is soon overshadowed by the furious “Address to the Devil”, where the band combine all signatures in one epic sequence. Succumbing to the devil in the loch is felt by being dragged down “to the unknown to sleep in the watery land” where “dark eyes, dead eyes drag me under - black waters, cruel hearts drag me under” morbidly repeated over and over again. This darkness embodies the spirit of black metal, set to a short film which is eerily given closing credits music in “The Nine Maidens of Dundee”, a fitting funereal finale.
