Russian folkers from Wolfmare are back ! A brand new album with a surprising title - we'll get back to that – to come after « Hand of Glory » released in 2010, came to life, ending up the long wait of 3 years and satisfying fans' hunger for new stuff.

 

The name of this opus is at the image of the album : unexpected. « The Sacred Mushroom and the Crows » seems to point out originality, which is confirmed by the artwork of the cover on which crows (whose singing will be found throughout the album so as to remind of the title) mix up with skulls and... giant mushromms, the overall give a very beautiful cover !

 

Now lets get into what matters here and music itself. The first word that comes to my mind to describe this album is « diversity », indeed we got here a very rich album and whose main quality according to me is precisely this diversity. Female and Male clean vocals, growls, hymns to party, epic tracks sounding as if there had come straight from sagas, more symphonic and majectic tracks like the wonderful « Muspilli » open new perspectives for the band and show their ambition. The album opens up on a great folk hymn, « Miss Barleycorn » on which traditional instruments mix up with perfectly executed heavy riffs on guitar, and that will be repeated though the album, sound is excellent, melodies catchy. We will particularly note the admirable track « Preacher's Daughter », amazing festive folk song and that is probably too the one on which the violin is best underlined whi is maybe not always the case ; and « Lust End » with its celtic accents in which some parts remind of some warrior chants and that bring back fans to the roots of folk.

 

As a conclusion I would say we got here a very good album, at the same time inn the continuity of Wolfmare's previous works, but that is remarkable too by some very ambitious songs on which the band renewed themselves a bit and take risks, which deserves to be said.

 

Morrigan.