Dervenn - Gwad Roueel

The escape to the traditional roots is chosen by few individuals during the multicultural era by a free will; this pass saves the unique colors of the specific areas of our so diverse world and serves the needs of those people to express themselves through the prism of their cultural exploration. Dervenn is the conceptual act inspired by Breton mythology, ancient Celts and stories about Knights of the Round Table.

With their first album 'Gwad Roueel' ("Royal Blood") the band throws listener into the atmosphere of medieval markets, royal fists in ancient castles, knight tournaments and other kinds of middle ages entertainment. Using a huge variety of Celtic traditional instruments, bag pipe, Breton oboe, transverse flute, Irish whistle and bodhran, Dervenn masterly mix them with more common tools of modern times without losing the exact spirit of the music. Fast, almost danceable compositions like "Ar Sterenn Roue" or "La Queste" take turns with dreamy ballads telling stories and myths, uncovering glorious adventures of noble heroes. The poetical part of the album is very strong, emphasizing the beauty side of the local nature and its influence on Celtic mythology.

Everything is very fluent in the album; all the neoclassical arrangements are built with a lot of passion and skill, giving on the way also a slight touch of emotional melancholia to the orchestration in general. But the weakest part of all, in my opinion, is a vocal session. I think that singer's voice in all kinds of music is the same instrument like all the rest, guitars, drums or whatever, and here this instrument is simply not of the same quality and doesn't fit into the compositions.

First of all, its level is behind the level of the music and simply sinks in all the instrumental diversity, being a driven, but not driving force for the poetical lyrical background. And secondly, its lack of strength and its timbre keep confusing me during all the records' run, leaving in the end a taste of imperfection of the whole creation. But even with this point of weakness, I am sure that this CD will find its grateful listeners in the field of neoclassical and medieval genre. Oct 04 2012