I very much enjoy seeing new bands play music that is balanced between Heavy Metal and Folk/Celtic music. That simply means for me that the spirit of our mother Earth is not yet lost. There are still many Pagans on earth that are keeping the beliefs and ideas of our ancestors well inside their hearts. Heol Telwen come to show us that the ancient Pagan spirit is still alive.
Heol Telwen was created in the summer of 1999.The band began to play Black/Death Metal influenced by the Nordic scene. In Early 2001, due to the Celtic/folk influences of the band members, Heol Telwen decided to change their musical orientation to a Celtic Pagan Metal direction, where the early Nordic Black Metal melt with traditional Breton and Irish music. In 2003 they released a Demo under the name Mor Braz and now here we have in our hands their debut album, An Deiz Ruz.
As I said before, Heol Telwen play Celtic Black Metal. In my opinion their major influences must be the first albums of Cruachan and Waylander. Their songs are heavy and fierce and they express an anger that could represent the anger that nature has because of the destruction that mankind has caused for so many centuries already. The atmosphere of the album is dark and all the Celtic melodies take us to the heart of the Northern European forests. The feelings that An Deiz Ruz lets out are aggressive towards all those who have for centuries hunted and killed the Pagans. Here we can feel the agony and anger of the ancient Celts when the good God-respected Christians where burning down their homes, torturing them in order to change their beliefs and in the end killing them and letting them rot in the middle of squares so that everyone could see the power of the "good Lord over the "evil Pagans.
In the musical part now, there are very good songs with good ideas on the guitars, an unstopping bombardment coming from the drums and a magical and enchanting atmosphere by the whistles and the bag pipes.
Especially the whistles and the bag pipes, they create an unbreakable web that imprisons your thoughts and haunt your mind so that you dream of the ages that humans and nature were one and human beings were not destroying the planet that they lived on, their own home.
I believe that every fan of Celtic/Pagan music, all the fans of Black Metal and not only them should check out this album. I hope that I'll learn news from these guys quite soon. Keep the Pagan spirit alive!
- Album Highlights: Ar Korrigan Du, Etre Douae Mor, Epona (part.1), "Epona (part. 2), Kan Ar Kern and Son Ar Everezh