Written By Kevin McSweeney
In my most recent Seven Deadly Songs column -maybe give it a read if you haven’t suffered enough this week – I made a vague promise to review the new Saor album Caledonia, the seventh full-length release from Scottish multi-instrumentalist Andy Marshall, which will be available from November 6th via Season of Mist.
It feels good to actually keep a promise for once! I say it’s a new album, but in fact, it’s a reworking of a selection of songs from their first three albums: 2013’s Roots, 2014’s Aura and 2016’s Guardians.
The selected songs have been spruced up and given the benefit of extra maturity and wisdom, and a better budget as well, no doubt. You’ll have to wait a bit longer for the true follow-up to last year’s Amidst The Ruins, but this is a fine stopgap to tide fans over.
Caledonia was of course the name given by the conquering Romans to Marshall’s native Scotland. The rugged, frostbitten beauty of its landscape has inspired many poets, painters, singers and scribes before, and so inspired by it is Marshall that he refers to his particular take on black metal as Caledonian metal.
There’s no church, or kirk, burning going on here. Rather, nature is its own cathedral, and the greatness of whatever creative force is responsible for us may be seen in the land and all its verdant glory.
Having said that, Marshall does not appear to hail from its mighty glens or the banks of its majestic lochs, but from the concrete jungle of Scotland’s largest city.
The Glasgow I know is characterised not by the beauty eulogised here, but by tower blocks, stabbings and Buckfast Tonic Wine. In fact, the only reason I’m in Devon now is the proximity to Buckfast Abbey, but that’s another story altogether.
Getting back to the point, this Saor Caledonia album review must contend with five lengthy tracks that I will now pick apart with my customary ham-fistedness for your edification. It’s like prising apart the petals of a flower that has yet to bloom, though in this case, I’ll be seizing a thistle, so it’s even more ill advised than usual. Help ma boab!
Saor Caledonia Album Review: Track-by-Track Through the Highlands
Aura MMXXVI
The influence of those pesky Romans rears its head at the outset with the title of the opening track, and all subsequent tracks. MMXXVI is 2026 in Roman numerals, of course, which acknowledges the musical reupholstering that has taken place.
The opening bars of the opening track place the Celtic mysticism foremost. We could almost be listening to Clannad, with those ethereal vocals and lilting melodies. When the heavy guitars of Marshall and the rolling double kicks of guest drummer Carlos Vivas inevitably emerge, they carry forth a melody that could be played on pipes and borne by a bracing wind across a Highland glen.
The combination of tin whistle and blast beat is one that stirs my own Celtic metal-loving blood. It’s as stark a juxtaposition as that of the aforementioned ethereal vocals with Marshall’s own death growl. In both cases, it works better than one might expect.
Speaking of Marshall’s death growl, It must be noted that it’s a strange vehicle for such poetic lyrics. They bear the character of Romantic poetry, and I don’t mean the lovey-dovey stuff, but rather the celebration of the glory of the natural world that we see in the work of poets such as Keats, Shelley and Coleridge. To illustrate this point, I’m going to give you the lyrics for this track in full:
I see there woods, and I see there thickets, I see there the fair and most fertile of meadows; I see there the deer on the ground in the corries Hiding in mantles of mist.
Lofty mountains and resplendent ledges,There dwell my own folk, kind folk of honour.Light is my step as I leap up to meet them; ‘Tis with pleasure I’ll stay there a while.
It’s beautiful, isn’t it? In fact, it’s like a blend of William Wordsworth and Robert Burns. It’s certainly a far cry from conventional metal lyrics. You’d think he might have slipped in something at least mildly unflattering about Jesus, but no. It’s not like black metal was in my day, I tell thee.
A further delectable incongruity occurs when classical guitar is combined with black metal tremolo picking over tribal drums. This leads us to the triumphant return of the whistle and blast beat combo and the ethereal vocals in an elongated coda that brings to an end a folk-infused epic of atmospheric black metal, in which the atmosphere thus evoked is ominous and dreich, if you’ll excuse my use of a Scottish colloquialism.
The Awakening MMXXVI
The plaintive opening strains of guest musician Angela Moya Serrat’s violin give way to a blast beat, launching us into black metal much more rapidly than on the slow building opening track. The first line evokes “the essence of antiquity”, and that is very much the theme here, as we are invited to walk in the footsteps of Marshall’s Scottish ancestors.
This brings to mind – to my mind at least – images of the trembling earth resounding the tread of the rustic haggis-fed in Address to a Haggis by Robert Burns. We are invited to follow in those formidable footsteps: “Towards the ether/And beyond the illusion of God.” Attaboy, Andy!
I knew we’d get there eventually. He’ll be calling Jesus a C-U-Next-Tuesday, Cradle of Filth-style, by the end of the album, I have no doubt!
I digress! Although we are firmly in black metal territory, the unorthodox instrumentation adorns the brutality with a mournful beauty.
I appreciate the foray into jig time in the verse. One could almost imagine the cutty sark-clad witches wheeling their way around Kirk Alloway to it, prior to breaking off to torment poor Tam O’Shanter. I appreciate also the deployment of what sounds like surf rock lead guitar, which dispels the image somewhat.
The clean male vocals add a majestic gravitas to proceedings, while the clean female vocals of guest musician Ella Zlotos are, frankly, phantasmagorical, evoking similar emotions in me to the melodic elements of Rose of Sharyn by Killswitch Engage. And oh! That tin whistle! It is a staggeringly beautiful piece of music at times. I could imagine myself becoming quite maudlin over it, were I savouring it with a bottle of single malt.
Carved in Stone MMXXVI
I see this central track as the key-stane o’ the brig, to reference Tam O’Shanter once more. I’m astonished, however, to hear it commence with the plaintive sound of the Uilleann Pipes (courtesy of Ella Zlotos).
For the uninitiated, these are a form of bagpipes more readily associated with Ireland than Scotland. They inflate via a bellows worked with the elbow, as opposed to being blown into, and produce a more mellow tone than their martial-sounding Caledonian cousins. It’s a pleasant surprise, filling me with a sense of Celtic solidarity.
Stylistically, the song is a little more gothic metal than black metal, at least at first, evoking My Dying Bride in their more melodic moments.
There’s a sense of keening to the vocals of Zlotos, reminding me of the late and dearly missed Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries. The low whistle over tom-tom rudiments brings to mind an army of blue-faced, kilted warriors gathered in the glen, awaiting the command to go forth and engage the invading Sassenachs in blood-drenched combat.
Marshall’s vocals aside, we don’t really get any discernible sense of black metal until around four minutes in, when a blast beat follows a lovely snare drum crescendo.
Even then, it is tempered by the haunting beauty of the whistle. “Ghostly whispers haunt the air”, it states in the lyrics, and that image is manifested perfectly in its preternatural strains.
It is achingly beautiful at times – not least when the host of voices – possibly attributable to the aforementioned warriors – sings: “Now awake/I stand free.” I’m surely not the only one thinking of Braveheart at this stage.
Hearth MMXXVI
It’s trad time once again as the fourth track commences, driven in 12/8 time by something that sounds suspiciously like a bodhrán. I’m loving these Celtic crossovers! It’s not the kind of jovial ditty that’ll have you up and dancing at the ceilidh, however.
The sombre tune played by Serrat on the fiddle reminds me a little of the Levellers. We switch to 4/4 time, and to black metal, at around the two-minute mark when Marshall’s harsh vocals enter the fray.
Lyrically, it reminds me of the pining for home expressed in William Wordsworth’s Lucy poems (though I’m not keen to labour the point, as those poems are a paean to England!) This stanza in particular illustrates the point well:
I’ve wandered through the ancient glens Where the air is filled with sorrow And climbed to the highest of peaks Walked amongst the haunted ruins of my nation
The “haunted ruins” reference makes me think of Letter from America by The Proclaimers. (It was inevitable that the Reed brothers would be mentioned at some point!) I’m thinking in particular of the appeal to the Scottish diaspora to: “…help us kick the life back/To a dying mutual friend.”
We have what is almost a duel between the violin of Serrat and the tremolo picking of Marshall at one point, which gives way to the metaphysical mingling of male and female vocals in a passage that makes the hairs on my neck stand up.
It’s odd that the subsequent blast beat doesn’t seem incongruous, especially as it is augmented by the whistle and pipes provided by Zlotos. It is for this reason that I look scornfully upon any attempt to hyper-compartmentalise genres and subgenres and subgenres of subgenres of subgenres.
Let things flow into each other. Sometimes they mix like oil and water; sometimes they mix like “uisce/uisge beatha” and ginger ale. You just don’t know until you try.
Tears of a Nation MMXXVI
I like the way the final track follows almost seamlessly from the coda of the previous track, with an unconvoluted melody on lead guitar atop the rolling kicks of Carlos Vivas.
I also can’t quite believe it’s the last of just five tracks. We’d be dealing with an EP here, were it not for the fact that the shortest song on offer is just shy of nine minutes in length. The closing track is epic in scope, and sombre in tone, which is a truly Celtic way to bring things to a close.
In terms of the lyrics, there’s just eight lines, which is not much for a song of over ten minutes in duration, so let’s give you the words in full:
Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banish’d peace, thy laurels torn! Thy sons, for valour long renown’d, Lie slaughter’d on their native ground
Thy hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to the door:-
In smoky ruins sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty
Thematically, it’s strikingly similar to a number of folk songs about Scotland or Ireland. The “…sons, for valour long renown’d” remind me of the “fine strong sons” in the traditional ballad Four Green Fields.
I’m also reminded of the “kinsmen”, who “lay huddled along the shore side” in the song Fire in The Glen by the Irish folk singer Damien Dempsey. The continuation of tradition is a main theme here, so this is perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the album.
Musically, it’s all in there, as in all the elements that makes Saor stand out in the congested world of black metal. There’s the carpal tunnel syndrome-inducing riffing and the furious drumming, but with pipes, whistles and fiddles go leor.
There can be at times a tendency towards the jaunty when folk elements are added to metal, such as on the glorious instrumental track Pellonpekko by Korpiklaani, and of course Marshall’s fellow Caledonians Alestorm. If there’s one thing you could never accuse Saor of being, it’s jaunty.
And yet there is something so uplifting about the coda. It’s a lovely, lilting melody, similar in certain respects to Highland Cathedral, or the Skye Boat Song. It’s wistful and melancholic, but it stirs the soul in a way that makes me smile.
For once, the blast beats feel a little forced. I don’t think they add anything at this stage, other than a final assertion of black metal credentials, but that’s but a minor quibble. It’s a glorious way to sign off on what has been a spellbinding celebration of Scotland.
And I am only too happy to celebrate Scotland. I think you can probably tell from this review that I love the place (even if it doesn’t necessarily love me). I marvel at its rugged beauty, just as I marvel at Marshall’s mastery of a multitude of musical instruments, and the equally impressive technical prowess of his guests.
It’s incredibly difficult to cultivate an identity that is instantly recognisable in the world of metal, where even excellent bands are often indistinguishable from one another when it comes to the blindfolded taste test. Saor, on the other hand, is a niche carved with a claymore into the trunk of an ancient Scottish oak tree that towers over the rest of the forest.
I can’t quite bring myself to award the album full marks, simply because it’s a collection of old songs given a fresh lick of paint, rather than a fully new album, but I came close. I absolutely loved Caledonia. I only hope Andy Marshall will forgive Metal Lair for allowing a Hibernian writer to review it. Lang may his lum reek.
Metal Lair awards Caledonia by Saor four and a half devil horns
Track list:
1. Aura MMXXVI
2. The Awakening MMXXVI
3. Carved in Stone MMXXVI
4. Hearth MMXXVI
5. Tears of a Nation MMXXVI
Line-up:
Andy Marshall — Composition, Vocals, Electric & Acoustic Guitars, Bass, Pads
Guest Musicians:
Carlos Vivas — Drums
Ella Zlotos — Female Vocals, Tin Whistle, Low Whistle, Uilleann Pipes
Àngela Moya Serrat — Violins
SAOR ONLINE:
About The Author
Kevin McSweeney is Metal Lair’s resident scribe of the underground, eternally rummaging through the global metal scene for riffs worth your time.
As the guiding hand behind Seven Deadly Songs every Friday, he has an uncanny knack for finding the track you didn’t know you needed, usually before finishing his pint.
Equal parts loyal, kind, and quietly razor-witted, Kevin brings deep knowledge, impeccable taste, and a steady, reliable presence to Metal Lair.
Read More From This Author:
Look What Happened – Weak Minds for the Weekend EP Review
Leng Tch’e Hammered Into Collapse EP Review: Five Minutes of Grindcore Brutality
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Album Review: Keep The Fire Burning by Mikey Ball and The Company
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