The Morrigan's Call

This time Cruachan have succeeded! “The Morrigan’s Call” challenges “The Middle Kingdom” for the spot as the best Cruachan-album. Even though I cannot say that they have perfected their style yet, I think that the overall quality is rising. There are weak things on “The Morrigan’s Call”. One of those is the habit of Cruachan to include one or two almost silly songs. I am a great fan of the folky parts, but sometimes it gets too jolly. Perhaps it is only a macho Metal side of me that is speaking, but the songs “Shelob” and “The Old Woman in the Woods” suffer from this.

Another problem I have thought about in Cruachan’s earlier work is the tendency of the music to become monotonous after seven or eight songs. That is gone! They have managed to vary their song material much more on this album. The lyrics are well written, as always, and the vocals are actually the best ever from this band. I am not a great fan of Karen Gilligan’s singing, but on this album she does not sing that high-pitched all the time, which renders her a higher grade. Keith Fay also sings much better here. Earlier I have preferred his growls, but his clean vocals have really improved.

The great strength of Cruachan is, and has always been, the ability to meld the Celtic music and the Metal together. That has actually become better too. Especially the solos and musical bridges in the songs really give another dimension. The Metal music on Cruachan’s has gone from Black Metal on “Tuatha Na Gael” to Heavy Metal on “Pagan”, but here they take a step back. It is still much closer to Heavy Metal, but the dark feeling of the early albums has returned. Please, stay on this track, and deliver more of this great Folk Metal! As usual the band members are synchronized and all the instruments do their tasks with precision and skill.

The best song on here is actually the really short title track. “The Brown Bull of Cooley”, “The Great Hunger” (really sad and slow) and “Diarmuid and Grainne” are really good songs too. Some nice parts are found in the both traditional songs “Téir abhaile riú” and “The Very Wild Rover”. “Wolfe Tone” and “Cuchulainn” (which is a remake of an old song of theirs) are pretty good as well.

As a short conclusion I must say that Cruachan have produced a great album, dark and heavy but also very melodic. As usual all the instruments are great, and now when the vocals have improved, the combined quality is higher. To release the perfected Cruachan-album, they must cut the few silly melodies, keep on varying instruments and vocals, and try to make all songs as great as the best ones on their albums this far. Then I will rejoice and declare the victory of the Gaels!