By Bona Pjarren
Ireland’s Cruachan have enjoyed a storied career since they took those tentative first steps back in 1992.
As frontman and sole original member Keith Fay elaborates: When I started writing music as a 13-year-old, I had no idea that I was laying the foundations for what would become a brand-new genre, folk metal, or that I was planting the seeds of what would be one of the longest running Irish metal bands in history. There have been many ups and downs over the last thirty years, band members have come and gone, record deals have come and gone. We’ve played some of the biggest metal festivals on the planet, travelled to more countries than most Irish bands would ever dream possible. And it has all led to this – our ninth album, ‘The Living and the Dead’.
The band celebrated their 30th anniversary last year with an invitation to submit a song to be considered for Ireland’s 2023 Eurovision song contest entry. Whilst the band weren’t ultimately successful, it did help remind people that Cruachan were very much back!
And so to ‘The Living And The Dead’ which is a double album, the second part being instrumentals of the first album. With this in mind I am going to concentrate my review on the first half, to avoid a lot of repetition.
‘The Living’ is a real rip roaring track in the finest Irish folk tradition. Fiddles to the fore thrashing out a lively reel, it is filled with light and joy as it switches through the gears. ‘The Queen’ has guitars more to the front. A beautiful bouncy song with extreme vocals it has a nice breakdown accompanied by strings and a frame drum type sound. Mandolin then takes up the melody and is added to by strings. ‘The Queen’ takes the listener on quite a journey and the music really compliments the story and finishing back with some nice thrashy guitar driven metal.
‘The Hawthorn’ is a very pleasant acoustic ballad. The guitar lays the body of the piece while violin and whistles drive the melody. It builds into something more metal with distorted guitar and a steadily building drum beat. ‘The Hawthorn’ is a masterclass in how to build a song.
‘The Harvest’ is straight in with some robust folk metal. Driving guitars and violins working well together before settling into a jig type song. There is excellent use of light and shade in its composition. ‘The Festival’ has a driving, chugging guitar piece in true metal fashion before launching into a whole hearted instrumental reel. ‘The Ghost’ is straight for the jugular with another reel style, but this time a song. There are some nice swirling guitar riffs and I liked the extreme vocal and blast beats. The bass solo was a great touch.
‘The Crow’ gives a pleasant break into a primarily acoustic song that reminded me a bit of Steeleye Span, particularly the vocal harmony parts. It builds and drops in intensity and again there is good attention to light and shade. The violin and whistles are excellent.
‘The Reaper’ is the song dedicated to Keith’s father and I was interested to see how this track came out. It was a lot heavier than I expected but the string breakdowns are very emotional and well written. I can see why it brought Keith to tears. The Reaper is a cleverly conceived piece.
‘The Children’ is next up and is another reel type metal song that skips along in a charmingly simple way that really suits the subject matter. ‘The Changeling’ follows on nicely from ‘The Children’ and has a certain haunting quality to it accentuated by some very sympathetic string arrangements. It builds nicely in intensity as the subject matter gets darker.
‘The Witch’ is a great rocky track with lots of traditional sounds, both classic rock and folk. It has a bit of a Whiskey in the Jar feel to it, it certainly gives a different feel to the album as a whole. ‘The Dead’ has a funeral dirge atmospheric introduction before launching whole heartedly into a vicious slab of driving death metal before returning to its original refrain.
‘The Living And The Dead’ is a quality album that stays true to its folk metal roots. It is packed with ideas and has been lovingly crafted. I can see why Cruachan have built such a reputation for quality over the years and I must admit I will be having a listen to some of their older stuff to see how it compares. Needless to say I feel this is a phenomenal album that is well worth listening to.
- ‘The Living And The Dead‘ is released on 24 March.
- Cruachan play the Siege Of Limerick on 9 April.
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