Furor Gallico – Furor Gallico (2011)

cover

As another entry into the Folk Metal scene, today we have Italy’s Furor Gallico and the re-release of their debut self-titled album through Massacre Records. While being almost the same as all other Folk Metal releases you could think of, Furor Gallico does manage to craft a few memorable songs and passages through this 58 minute release.

Immediately after the cliché intro track, “Venti Di Imbolc” delivers powerful blows of Death Metal growls nicely paired with distorted guitar. Here, the mixture of folk and Metal elements is pretty well done since it does not sound weak or watered down like in most current bands, however, it sounds a lot like Eluveitie. The Folk passages are very typical of the genre in songs like “Anciente Rites”, “Cathubodva”, and “The Gos Have Returned”, but the nice contrast with aggressive parts, clean vocals and different elements give them a bit of a boost versus your run-of-the-mill Folk Metal band.

When it comes to authentic instruments, the band makes use of: Celtic harp, violin, bouzouki, tin whistle, low whistle, and a few others. As you can see, this is a hefty amount of real instruments and not some dude using a synth (like in many bands). With a few acoustic songs “Golden Spiral” and “Bright Eyes”, the band never abuses the Folk side of things and does not damage your ear drums with excessive ‘folkiness’ in the songs structures.

As for the best songs in this release, we particularly enjoyed “Miraculous Child” and “Medheland”. Both of these songs feature a hefty dosage of Metal parts with almost Black Metal-esque speedups, but also with a nice folk component that makes the contrasting elements more appealing. However, our favorite thing is that when the ‘harsh’ sections are happening, there is a sense of melody almost approaching Melodic Death Metal that only a handful of bands have managed to combine with folk/classical instruments (like Dark Lunacy).

In general, Furor Gallico is a pretty solid band but they still need to mature a bit more. While there are great songs in this release, the whole album feels very disconnected and more like a random collection of songs. There is also plenty of repetition like any other band in the genre, and this is exactly what sets the ‘average’ bands apart (in a bad way) from the genre giants. We believe that with more work and time, Furor Gallico and their ‘true’ Metal approach to the genre will be giving people something to talk about with their future releases so keep an eye out for them.

Band: Furor Gallico Album: Furor Gallico
Label: Massacre Records

Release: July 29th, 2011

Oficial Site myspace
Genre: Folk Metal

Country: Italy

Rating: 82/100
Year: 
Genre: 

Recent Image Galleries