Tingaralatingadun

Considering that these guys come from Brazil, it would be really hard to expect such amazing folk metal album from some guys that have no background to the Celtic culture whatsoever. Thus, this is by all means a great album and a pleasant folk experience to listen to.

Throw away Mago de Oz which is a pure assholes band that have no interest in promoting the Celtic culture but just make money out of playing folky metal for the masses. Not that it is bad but when the pure heart of the culture gets lost in the mayhem them the music becomes empty, not matter how good the musicians can be.

The album opens with some tribal drumming and flutes to evoke the feeling of being partying in the forest with trolls and dwarfs. It is a fantastic way to open. The guitar riff in the opener ‘The Dance of the Little Ones’ is cool enough to maintain interest in the metal-folk music blend. The vocals although not that good, especially the background vocals, they fit the music. This song has some grunts interluded which are not that out of place. They also have plenty of guitar solos to give more melodic sound.

I will not describe each song since the other guy already did it so I am going to focus on two different aspects but there are a lot of things going on with this album which makes it really interesting, such as: there are many guitar solos, there are fun songs, ‘epic’ songs, battle songs, acoustic interludes, lots of guitar hooks, violins, flutes, keyboards well performed, cool riffs and a lot of surprises during the length of the album, etc.

Particularly for me when listening to folk metal I seek, well, that… folk metal. Since the genre is becoming overcrowded with a lot of shitty bands, finding remarkable records can be a difficult task, and to shake things a little, they can be found in the most remote parts of the world (Brazil in this case). I find Korpiklanni amazing and there are some other bands out there like Folkearth, Asmegin, etc. While I do not enjoy black metal with folk glimpses here and there and folk metal can become overshadow by this concept, Tuatha de Danann is a remarkable band that play for the sake of fun and to create a nice, enjoyable and accessible sound which very interest elements like the inclusion of that many guitar solos and folky instruments.

The production is a bit under the barrel since the mix tends to minimize the impact of the instruments and the guitars have some fuzz sound that does not allow them to really give the punch that’d do this a lot for improving. The back ground vocals are really flat and these guys don’t really know how to do it but other than that the sound maintains your interest as well as all the other aspects of the album, naming yet simple but effective song writing, cool melodies, powerful metal, very well performed and influenced folk vibe and most important, and enjoyable and fun album without black metal included.