Heol Telwen
An Deiz Ruz

“12 tracks digipack of pure folk metal with traditional instruments” says the promotional flyer of the French band..

It's not really "folk metal" per se, but rather "French-themed Celtic Black/Death Metal", in the sense that recently many bands with almost identical sound, voice, and instruments have been emerging from France one after another, to the point of seeming to be made with the same mold. Practically indistinguishable from one another. This is not a flaw, but rather a double-edged sword, because precisely due to their similarities, some groups that don't shine as much as others might get left out, despite producing good work.

Fortunately, this is not the case with Heol Telwen! With this debut, they offer us 12 highly enjoyable tracks sung in Breton (!!) where we find instrumental pieces of pure Celtic music, but above all, songs where the metal soul perfectly blends with the Celtic one, immersing us in an exciting and engaging spiral. So don't expect Finntroll-style beer festival music, but rather hard and pure extreme metal played as it would have been by a group of Celts 2000 years ago. The predominant traditional instrument on the album is the Pan flute, but in some songs, although very rarely, bagpipes and other instruments also come into play. What strikes is that the group's inspiration is admirable, never a drop in tone or repetition, truly remarkable!! Finding compositional peaks is difficult because all (absolutely all) of the songs are truly beautiful. However, songs like the title track, "Ar Korrigan Du" or "Epona pt.2" truly deserve to be remembered.

This is a recommended album not only for Viking Metal fans but for all enthusiasts of extreme metal and also Celtic music. One last note on the excellent artwork and the incredible (and unreadable) logo. In essence, a must-have!!