Cruachan – The Middle Kingdom

Released 2000 (Re-released 2004), Karmageddon media / Hammerheart Records

Cruachan, a band not very well known to the outside world, except for fans of pagan and folk metal. Cruachan’s home lies in the beautiful country of Ireland, and that’s mostly what inspired this album.

This being only their second studio album, the band has achieved to create a great CD with a lot of variety.
The album starts with a near 4–minute musical masterpiece as an intro. Combining light percussion and the bagpipes, this is quite an interesting way to start off an album. “Celtica” is the song that follows. This really pictures a good choice of how to mix slow and fast pieces together, and brings out the musical ability of these pagan metallers the best. It truly is one of the best songs on the album, together with the titlesong “The Middle Kingdom”, that shows that not only bagpipes and guitars, but also the flute are a great way to add depth to their music, and “Is fuair an Chroi”.
Though this band is not a typical death or trash metal band, it manages to combine fast and heavy guitar riffs with catchy Irish tunes and a good vocal ability. The lyrics mostly cover fantasy subjects, though there is the exception of the song “Is fuair an Chroi” which describes the pain after the departing of someone’s loved one.
Another nice thing is the fact that there is also a message in some of the songs, and not just a simple fantasy story. “The Middle Kingdom” carries the message that modern man are destroying the old world, which actually means that we are destroying the earth. Though one song in a foreign language is present (“Óró sé do Bheata Abhaile”), I’m grateful they did not make any more. Though it is nice to listen to, I do not enjoy these songs very often.
As there are good points there are also some negative points. I would have liked some more male vocals as heard on “The Middle Kingdom” and “Unstabled”, and every now and then the intros were a bit too long for my liking. For fans of death metal and anything else that’s quite fast, this is not very advisable, though if you listen to it a couple of times, I’m sure you’ll appreciate it in its own way. Anyway, these guys (and girl) are really devoted to their music and to what they do, that I’m sure we’ll hear some more great CD’s from them.
All in all, this album is definitely worth while listening too, and I think the majority will enjoy it, due to its creativity and originality. For as far as I could tell there were no real big downsides to this album, and you can notice the production of this album went pretty well. The album is just like it’s cover, beautiful!
Recommendable songs are “Celtica” and “The middle Kingdom”, due to their greatest variety. However, I advise everyone to give every song a listen, just to decide what song you like most, since there is quite some variety in the type of songs. 
www.cruachan.cjb.net

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