ALBUM REVIEW: Corryvreckan – Hand Of Kalliach
Based in the wonderfully dark, brooding and gothic city of Edinburgh – the capital of the great northern land of Scotland – and taking their name from the legend of the Cailleach, the ancient witch god of winter from Scottish Celtic mythology, HAND OF KALLIACH are a unique, mystical force in melodic death metal. Formed in 2020, the husband and wife duo of John (vocals, guitars and drums) and Sophie (vocals, bass) weave the haunting beauty of Scottish folk music with the thrashing brutality of death metal as they tell stories from the depths of Scottish myth and legend.
Legend states that the ancient witch Cailleach lives at the bottom of an enormous whirlpool – you guessed it, the Corryvreckan – and it is located in between the western isles of Scotland. Every year she rises from the depth of the Corryvreckan to wash her plaid cloak in the wash. Once it is clean and gleaming white she casts it across the earth where it lands as snow. This is done at Samhain and ends at Beltane. In Beltane, when the snows melt and spring arrives, she turns to stone and waits to emerge again next winter. With this shadowy figure at the back of your mind, HAND OF KALLIACH’s music becomes hauntingly powerful and evocative.
The album follows on from 2021’s Samhainn, and carries on HAND OF KALLIACH’s rich fusion of ethereal atmospheres, haunting folk music and roaring death metal. Imbued with all things Celtic and Gaelic, Corryvreckan feels like a natural successor to Samhainn, a continuation of Cailleach’s legend that sees the duo venture deeper into the dark corners of Scotland to bring ancient tales lost to time back into the light of day with thunderous riffs and ethereal melodies.
There is a strong sense of place throughout Corryvreckan. You can vividly visualise the snow-covered winter landscape, the frosted lochs, fog-smothered mountains and the swirling, stormy waters that batter the coast. Alongside the use of Scots Gaelic in some of the songs, you feel as though you’ve been put under a spell and taken to the shadowy depths of the otherworld where the daoine sìth rule. Corryvreckan will have you looking up Scottish mythology as you listen; it piques your curiosity as well as blows you away with its perfectly timed anthemic choruses and biting bagpipe melodies.
One of HAND OF KALLIACH’s strengths is how John and Sophie have an innate knowledge of each other’s creative strengths. Each song has an equal weight of ethereal melodies and bruising death metal. This is something that first started to develop on their 2020 debut EP Shade Beyond, was built on in Samhainn, and is now taken up another level on Corryvreckan. As a result, the songs on this album are infinitely more spellbinding, haunting and bruising than anything the band have done before, bringing the tumultuous mythology of their homeland to life with an awe-inspiring beauty.
Opening the album is Three Seas, a haunting introduction to the landscape that Corryvreckan sits in. A dark, ancient shadow looms over the water as the tides crash on the rocks, then the riffs begin to build with dramatic effect before exploding into life. It leads into Fell Reigns which opens with a brilliantly Celtic guitar melody and stunning ethereal vocal. The death metal side of the album starts to make its presence felt on this track, which prepares you for the unrelenting chaos of Dìoghaltas. With all the fury of Neit (the Celtic god of war) and the Morrigans, Dìoghaltas is a belting track full of ferocious riffs and relentless drums that makes you want to take up arms and fight for Scotland.
Cirein-Cròin slows the pace down and leans more into the ethereal aspects of the band’s sound. The strong synth layers and ethereal vocals are bewitching to hear. Deathless follows suit, but it is here that the interplay between the duo really shines as metal effortlessly bleeds into the ethereal and back again, creating this wall of sound that consumes you completely with its intoxicating melodic magic. The Hubris Of Prince Bhreacan is a roaring track that stands out at the heart of the album; anthemic and epic, it captures what HAND OF KALLIACH are all about. Unbroken You Remain and The Cauldron follow in a similar vein, and it is so easy to get wrapped up in the mysticism of the lyrics and the enchanting atmospheres that you lose track of time. The album concludes with Of Twilight And The Pyre, a culminating track that sends the album into the snowy landscapes with an evocative and emotional flourish.
Brutally beautiful and eerily ethereal, HAND OF KALLIACH have put together another spellbinding album steeped in myth and magic. It is impossible to not feel bewitched by Corryvreckan, just make sure you don’t end up in its icy waters.
Rating: 9/10
Corryvreckan is set for release on February 23rd via Prosthetic Records.
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