THE MORRIGAN'S CALL

Cruachan is an Irish metal band with a long history, formed way back in 1992. The Morrigan's Call is their fifth studio album and sixth full length release - having released one compilation album - and was released in 2006 in Europe and 2007 in the US.

Musically the band themselves call their brand of metal for Celtic Metal. The best way to describe the music for me is that it is a mix of traditional Irish folk music and classic heavy metal; with some flavouring from modern black metal.

There are really three types of songs on this release. There is a few shorter songs here that are pure folk music, then there are songs that goes back and forth between folk segments and metal segments, and at last there are songs that mix both styles at once; often with pure metal and folk segments as well.

The metal segments have some variations to them as well. Some segments are clearly influenced from Black Sabbath, some are closer to classicc 80's heavy metal in style, and some are close to modern black metal. The vocals are the main element from modern black metal; as the music as such doesn't have the same intensity, pace and brutality of this genre; although it is clearly inspired by it.

The variations in style here also leads to some variation in vocal delivery. Karen Gilligan sings in both the folk segments, the classic heavy metal segments and in the mixed segments. Keith Fay sing in the same types of segments as Karen, but he also delivers the black metal style croaking in the black metal segments on this album.

Mixing folk music and metal in this way is not an easy task. There are quite a few bands that has done the regular folk metal aspect of this previously, but adding elements from black metal to this mix as well isn't that normal.

Cruachan does pull it off though; they manage to mix these styles of music quite well. The songs here are a varied lot, but mostly good. Personally I like them best when playing pure folk, and least when they leap into the black metal segments. Still, most of the music here is highly intriguing; and anyone fond of Irish folk and classic heavy metal should check out how this band mix these styles.