Artist: Dalriada (Hungary)
Album Title: Arany-Album
Record Label: Nail Records (Hungary)
Released: 2009
One of my favorite folk metal bands, Dalriada, is back with an awesome new album, this time with all lyrics taken from the great Hungarian poet János Arany. Once again, this album seems to have gotten little promotion or distribution outside of Hungary, so I ordered it from the Hungarian Music Store on Ebay. This is an annoyance I've brought up on the past two Dalriada reviews I did, and the problem continues so I'm mentioning it again.
Anyway, despite the obscurity of the band and the difficulty in legally obtaining their releases, all of Dalriada's albums thus far have been worth the trouble to find, in my opinion, and Arany-Album is no exception. This album contains 13 tracks (with no throw-away or filler tracks to be found), the first seven being brand new songs and the other six being re-recordings of songs from past Dalriada/Echo of Dalriada releases. The six re-recorded songs include the three songs that made up the original Echo of Dalriada demo, A Walesi Bárdok, plus three songs whose original versions appeared on Fergeteg, Jégbontó, and Kikelet, respectively. The seven new songs make up a little more than 40 minutes of the album, while the remainder of the 75 total minutes of Arany-Album are the re-recordings.
It hasn't been very long since the 2008 release of Szelek, and the band still sounds much the same (a unique form of folk-infused power/gothic metal with female and male vocals, and a few elements of extreme metal thrown into the mix), with some changes and additions to the personnel. Bassist György Varga and keyboard player András Kurz (the latter of whom was relied on very heavily for the folk parts on the previous album) are gone. In their place are István Molnár and Barnabás Ungár, respectively. I'm not sure if it's the result of having a new keyboard player, but the synths are not as prominent on this album as they were on Szelek, where they mimicked instruments such as the accordion. On the seven new tracks the band is joined by some guest musicians, including a flute player and a few strings players. Violin, viola, double bass, some form of lute, and perhaps other instruments for which I could not find English translations are used on the album. These instruments appear prominently in the new tracks, and greatly enhance the songs on which they appear. However, the band apparently made the decision not to use these instruments on the six re-recorded tracks (except for a short part on the last track), so those are mostly unchanged from the earlier versions, other than improved recording quality, some changes in vocals, and some different keyboard arrangements. Speaking of vocals, drummer Tadeusz Rieckmann contributed low, death metal-like growls at various parts, while guitarist/vocalist András Ficzek handles the higher-pitched shrieks along with his normal sung vocals. Oh, and vocalist Laura Binder plays flute again on this album, something she used to do but hasn't done (at least in a recording) since Jégbontó.
All right, now that that's out of the way, how are the new tracks? Quite excellent! The album begins in strong form with "Zách Klára," a song that will likely be considered a Dalriada classic. This song is pretty epic, with a lot of mood and tempo changes. It's mostly a pretty upbeat song, with great vocals from András, Laura, and Tadeusz, some fast folky parts, and even a wicked keyboard solo. The band doesn't really capitalize on that momentum, however, and slow things down after that. Most of the album is kept at a medium pace, and the band confidently strides through the new material, showing their strong instrumental and songwriting abilities while keeping things tasteful. The album is strongly melodic, and the melodies are unlike what you'll normally hear in any sort of metal. They seem to be strongly influenced by Hungarian folk music. If you're getting tired of hearing the same types of melodies from folk metal bands, you might find Dalriada to be refreshing. Another standout track on the album is "Szent László (2. rész)," which has irresistible vocal harmonizing and some nice violin parts.
I must mention that the vocals are an area where this band has notably improved over the years. András has learned to lean on the strengths of his range rather than strain his voice to reach a lot of high notes, and his vocal lines weave wonderfully within the vocal lines of Laura Binder, whose voice only grows more enchanting with every Dalriada release. Sometimes they harmonize, sometimes they'll sing back and forth (like a conversation), while other times they'll be singing entirely different things at the same time, yet it all goes together well.
There's a noticeable shift that takes place between the new tracks and the re-recorded tracks. The band has made a lot of progressions in their songwriting over the years, but they don't bother to change the older songs much, so even if you're not familiar with the original recordings you may notice the change in the middle of Arany-Album. The biggest improvements, particularly in the songs from A Walesi Bárdok and Fergeteg, are in the production and the performances themselves. The band has come a long way since their demo days, and I must admit that it's very nice to hear these songs re-recorded. It makes me wonder what the rest of Fergeteg would sound like re-recorded. The changes are less noticeable on the two chapters that make up "Szondi Két Apródja," as the originals still stand up quite well. The second chapter's prominent (and strangely futuristic sounding) synth part has been done away with on the re-recording, which was impossible for me to not notice.
Dalriada has paid a worthy metal tribute to a great poet with Arany-Album. One can hardly imagine that Arany would not be pleased with and honored by what the band has done here, metal fan or not. Hungary may not have much in the way of bands in this genre, but they have a reason to be proud with Dalriada carrying the banner for Hungarian folk metal. With the Arany-Album, they've added to their impressive discography and have crafted an album that can stand alongside the very best the genre has to offer. Authentic, sincere, musically adept and with great songwriting skills; what more can one ask for?
Not surprisingly, I highly recommend this one.
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