Artist: Furor Gallico
Title: Furor Gallico
Genre: Pagan Metal
Release Date: 29th July 2011
Label: Massacre Records
Album Review
FUROR GALLICO’s goal is to bring Celtic legends to you through the medium of Pagan metal. They formed in 2007, played alongside acts such as ELUVEITE, STRATOVARIUS, and EQUILIBRIUM etc. They’ve self-produced ‘Furor Gallico’, first full-length album, and later signed on with Massacre Records, which obviously helps pushing it further afield. The self-titled album is a fusion of quite an interesting sound, they utilised several streams of Metal with folk in a way that feels organic, yet at the same time it feels that it’s not just a matter of chance, most is thought through carefully. As you would expect, they’re multi-instrumental, i.e. as in a second song ‘Venti Di Imbolc’ you’ll hear hurdy-gurdy, in the third ‘Ancient Rites’ an Irish bouzouki, well, not to mention harp, flute and of course, violin as the album unfolds! And even some samples of battle sounds. Thematically it’s nothing unexpected from Pagan / Folk ideas & lyrics seeped in tribalism, wars, myths and rituals, and so on. The vocals are interesting in their mixture of clean vocals well communicating with the backing ones, the growls and screams and some raw vocals add a further “flavour”.
Highlights for me were ‘Golden Spiral’ with a beautiful violin, atmospheric and slightly melancholy song and differing in its exclusion of Metal components. ‘Miraculous Child’ with its interaction of violin, harp and guitars (distorted), adding elegance to the overall feel of the song. ‘Medhelan’ is just a classic Celtic number, though the vocal tries to diversify from expectation of a clean vocal for this song by its super-throatiness, it’s ragged, raw feel and half-growling responded to by the full-growl, at the end though you’ll hear the clean vocals. The next song ‘Bright Eyes’ employs a whistle - a best part of this particular piece. No vocals here, so you get a bit of a relaxing break. The ending one ‘The Glorious Dawn’ contains more of the clean vocals, which makes a nice and even by now welcomed change too... not that I don’t like the screams/growls etc, but variety is always appreciated. The metal parts are nothing really new under the sun, a lot of distortion, few Power/Heavy metal reminders, small glimpses of Death metal, but that’s about it. That part of their music is just a more a component for the background really - unless they give it as much attention to it in future as to the vocals or the folksy elements which outweigh it by some.
For fans of the genre, this is a definite should-have, a quality and wonderfully composed record indeed by a still evolving band. And even for those not enthused by Pagan/Folk Metal this is an interesting release to give it a chance for a listen.
Tracklist
01. Intro – 2.00
02. Venti Di Imbolc – 4.22
03. Ancient Rites – 3.23
04. Cathubodva – 6.29
05. The Gods Have Returned – 4.13
06. Golden Spiral – 2.35
07. Curmisagios – 1.56
08. Miraculous Child – 6.17
09. Medhelan – 6.32
10. Bright Eyes – 2.18
11. La Caccia Morta – 4.48
12. Banshee – 5.06
13. The Glorious Dawn – 8.01
Line-up
On the album:
Davide Cicalese – Clean vocals, growls, screams
Stefano Centineo – Guitar and Backing Vocals
Luca Rossi – Guitar
Marco Brambilla – Bass
Elisabetta Rossi – Celtic Harp, female vocals
Laura Brancorsini – Violin
Maurizio Cardullo – Tin Whistle, Bouzouki, Bagpipe
Simone Sgarella – Drums
Actual Line-up:
Davide Cicalese – Clean vocals, growls, screams
Stefano Centineo – Guitar and Backing Vocals
Luca Rossi – Guitar
Fabio Gatto – Bass
Elisabetta Rossi – Celtic Harp, female vocals
Laura Brancorsini – Violin
Paolo Cattaneo – Tin Whistle, Bouzouki
Simone Sgarella – Drums
Websites
http://www.myspace.com/furorgallico
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 8
Total: 8 / 10
Comments powered by CComment