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Very interesting! - 75%
Alike many of the 70’s bands playing heavy rock, Stangala have imbued their music with an occult vibe that makes it sound pretty retro, if not ancient. Except of course, “Boued Tousek Hag Traou Mat All” was released a couple years ago and that vibe of theirs is rather explicit.
The Metal Archives have labeled them as doom/stoner metal with Celtic folk elements and although I cannae refute that, that’s a reductive and superficial description of these Frenchies’ sound. Again similarly to the bands from the seventies, they play a rich form of music that involves elements of psychedelic rock, celtic music, jazz, heavy metal, hard rock and some drone minimalistic effects.
Adding up for the explicit mysticism, there’s the fact all lyrics are written in Breton language —that’s a Celtic language spoken in Brittany, genius—. I’m not that interested in lyrics these days, but being unable to know what they are exactly about, makes a morbid kind of curiosity grow. A curiosity that I prefer to keep unmet.
As for the songs, I’d say there are highs and lows, mainly due to lack of consistency among the tracks. Out of the ten cuts in this record, you can hardly say more than the half of them are real songs. Of course, the ones that do qualify under that category are pretty good. They’re groovy, heavy and rather fun if you ask me, with lots and details and all. Matter of fact, there’s quite a few memorable guitar and bass riffs, and some pretty amazing melodies.
On the other hand most of those instrumental tracks scattered through the album do nothing for keeping the effect of us listening to anything resembling heavy music, but some ethnic record. Although I understand that’s in part the intention of these guys, I found that feature a bit off putting. There should be better ways to make your album sound deep.
All in all, “Boued Tousek Hag Traou Mat All” is an honorable effort for a debut album, and it did make interest grow in me to look forward to a second one.
—Originally written for www.globaldomination.com
