Cales - Uncommon Excursion

Well, Cales is certainly an obscure band, even by metal standards. I have the 2001 release The Pass In Time, which was a very strong folk/celtic metal album. These guys were one of my first experiences of the folk metal genre, and I absolutely loved it. Listening to that album now I realize its not the best of the folk metal genre, though its still a good album.

Uncommon Excursion departs from the Celt metal themes and becomes a more straightforward rock album. Its not a huge change from The Pass In Time, as these guys definitely have their own unique sound. The guitars and acoustic guitars create some good songs and ballads that I'm thoroughly enjoying as I listen. The singer only uses his clean voice on this, not that he did a lot of death vocals on The Pass In Time. This is both good and bad - Good, because his clean voice is improved since The Pass In Time; bad, because I liked his death vocals.

I don't think there's a bad song on this album. I'm always a bit leery of albums that are over 60 minutes, but I'm very satisfied with the music. It's good that these guys didn't force another Celtic metal album if this is what they were wanting to write at the time. However, they are much better at designing Celtic inspired album covers than rock images. This one has a very lame picture of an astronaut with a flame thrower...

8/10 Listen to this, just don't look at it.