Folk metal. In my opinion, one of the best genres of metal. Why? Because when you listen to folk metal you get images in your head of a lot of different things. Things like war, weapons, battle warriors, and other things of that nature. Cruachan is probably one of the best bands to listen to if you want all of that. They play folk metal mixed with a little bit of black metal. Think of Borknagar, just less a little less black metal like. This is The Morrigan's Call.
First of all, the best thing about this album is the folk instruments. You have all kinds of different things cellos, flutes, and other things like that. They also throw in some keyboards. Cruachan execute the use of the folk instruments so well that if you close your eyes, you can imagine being right in the middle of Ireland in the middle of some kind of epic battle. Believe me this is a good thing. Cruchan has two vocalists, one female and one male. The female is the more dominant one on the album singing in a operatic like voice. She reminds me of Sarah from Cradle of Filth. The male has three different kinds of vocal styles. He has a singing voice, more of a deep shouting, and then the infamous black metal shrieks. He executes them all to perfection.
As far as the guitars, bass, and drums. They really don't have that much of an impact on this album because of all the folk instruments being the center of attention. There are realy no memborable riffs or basslines that stuck out. There are some blast beats and tremelo picking when the black metal parts pick up, but thats about it. You wont be hearing any kind of killer solos on this album. This doesn't really effect the album at all though because when you hear how awesome the folk instruments and the keyboards are played, you really won't care about hearing any ripping solos or awesome basslines.
As for the individual songs, there are either the ones that mix both the extreme black metal side and the folk metal side such as Shelob and The Brown Bull of Cooley, or the straight up folk metal masterpieces like The Great Hunger and The Very Wild Rover. They also throw in an instrumental or two along the course of the album.
Overall this album is amazing. If you are in need of some folk metal with a little black metal edge, this album would be perfect. Like I said earlier, Cruachan will give you great images in your head of exactly whats going on during the album. Also, if you're Irish this album is perfect too because they do a great job of incorporating elements of their homeland into their music. That goes for the rest of their album as well.
