Cruachan - The Middle Kingdom (re-issue)

*=Staff's pick	A Celtic Mourning Celtica (Voice Of The Morrigan) The Fianna A Druids Passing Is Fuair An Chroi Cattle Raid Of Cooley (Táin Bó Cuailgne)* The Middle Kingdom Óró Sé Do Bheatha Abhaile Unstabled (Steeds Of Macha) The Butterfly To Hell Or To Connaught

Genre	Celtic Folk Metal	K. Gilligan, Keith Fay	Vocals
Tracks	11	Keith Fay	Guitar
Runningtime	48 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Karmageddon Media	John Clohessy	Bass
Release	08 March 2004	Joe Farrell	Drums
Country	Ireland	John O'Fathaigh	Irish flute
Similar artists	Freedom Call, Rhapsody, Stratovarius

Why?, is my first response toward this album. The album was released in 2000, so why release a re-issue of it? And seriously speaking, is it really good enough to go for another round? It gets the other way around as my reference on Cruachan is turned around hearing the latest and most recent release Pagan before the re-issue of The Middle Kingdom, so bare with me.

It is a terrible start with bagpipes screaming for four minutes, come on it isn't that beautiful now is it? This album lacks all the good melodies and power that Pagan has, the singing is even worse here and the production, well if it was bad with Pagan and this one is four years older so, take a guess. Where Cruachan actually succeeds best is with the instrumental track Cattle Raid Of Cooley, it is actually a relief when you get rid of the vocals and can just focus on the mix with Celtic and metal.

Im sure that Cruachan has something important to tell with their lyrics but with the bad singing and the terrible attempts to create a metal folk hybrid I not gonna hang around to find out. One thing that you must hold in defence for Cruachan is that they actually do posses the skill of traditional Celtic music, in the calmer and free from metal pieces it is actually musically good, even if the vocals aren't the best. But it is with the attempt to combine the Celtic music with the heavy metal it all fails, so forget about The Middle Kingdome and skip right to Pagan instead, at least there they are starting to comprehend the mixture of the two styles.

See also review of: The Morrigan's Call , Pagan

Production	Vocals	Compositions
3	2	3

Summary
3 chalices of 10 - Thomas