I have to hang my head in shame. It may be a while since I’ve listened to this band, but part of my brain had totally forgotten that they share their name with the Primarch of the Raven Guard Space Marine Legion from Warhammer 40K which would’ve been the initial reason I checked them out. To be fair it would be about 15 years since I was first introduced to them and since then there had been a lot side projects – including a band I still very much listen to on a regular basis, Tanzwut. Also, something that has popped into my head is that Corvus Corax do a rather fantastic version of Amon Amarth’s “Twilight of the Thunder God” which is worthwhile four minutes of your time.
I mentioned Tanzwut as for me they were what the band would’ve sounded like if they incorporated a metal style into the more medieval sound of the very early albums. Fast forward to 2022 and straight away even from the cover this looks like it could be a very different Corvus Corax album. So let’s see…
There’s no shortages of guest appearances on the album, most notable Doro Pesch on “Beowulf”, Bill Gould (Faith No More) on “La i mbeltaine” and, my personal favourite, Nemtheanga from Primordial who features on “Na lama-Sa”, one of the longest tracks coming in just over eight minutes.
Fortunately, as the album is a double, the guest tracks all feature on the second part of this release which frees up the first part to be exactly what I had hoped for – very early and familiar sounds mixed in with guitar solos. A perfect example of this is the track “Sverker”. The first part also features different versions of the tracks featured on the later part so it’s actually quite well put together, having a different version to compare against.
As a fan of both the traditional sound of Corvus Corax and subsequent side projects, Era Metallum has the perfect blend to tempt a straying fan back in with open arms and bagpipes.
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