Besides Primordial this is the only extreme metal band I have heard of from Ireland. Before this album, which was released back in 1995, they put out a demo called "Celtica" in 1994. "Tuatha na Gael" (meaning "Tribes of Ireland") is supposed to be very hard to come by these days so boy am I glad I grabbed a copy before it was sold out because this is a killer album!

I still remember a few years back when I first played it. I was not quite sure what to expect, I had heard that it was some kind of blend between celtic folk music and raw black metal. The first thing that struck me was the pure excellence of the intro, fucking hellfire what a composition! It has such an incredible folky and sorrowful feel, probably among the best damn intros ever done. What followed was a metal-based song with raw, snarling vocals and riffs sounding like black metal versions of folk music tunes. When speeding up, the music occasionally shows some death metal influences. The third track is another instrumental piece, also quite excellent. It has some traditional druid/shaman tribal drums (of course no negroid bongo crap) setting the pace with regular irish folk music instruments played onto it. The remaining songs of the album are mostly in the metal-vein, but most of the songs have alot of supreme folk music parts in them. There is also occasional clear hymnic vocals.

I would recommend anyone into celtic and/or folkish music to try to get hold of this. It's feeling of ancient European spirit and pride is just incredible!

© 1999 blodsband