The new project from Skyclad vocalist Kevin Ridley Theigns & Thralls sees the release of their self titled debut album and while it may divide Metal fans it’s one that should get Celtic-Punk fans very excited.
Theigns & Thralls is a new band formed by vocalist and songwriter Kevin Ridley. Kevin has been a long time member of the English heavy metal band Skyclad who always played with strong Folk influences throughout their music. The plan for Theigns & Thralls was to be a somewhat ‘occasional band’ for the times when Skyclad were inactive. With the pandemic though the idea took on a new lease of life and became a collaborative recording project. Calling on his many friends in the music scene across Europe, twenty-five musicians from bands like Korpiklaani, Ensiferum, Cruachan, Waylander, Celtibeerian and Metal De Facto as well as a handful of solo musicians contributed. Everything from drums, bass, guitar, violin, whistles, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy and vocals were covered and the result was the first Theigns & Thralls single, ‘Drinking’, in February this year.
I think you can divide the album into three parts with the the first few songs leaning more into Celtic-Punk territory before becoming more Metal / Rock influenced while the last few songs, mainly the bonus tracks are more folky / experimental. The album kicks off with ‘Procession’, a short bagpipe intro that builds and builds and leads straight into album title track ‘Theigns & Thralls’
“from Magna Carta to the age of reform,suffrage is still not the norm for one and all,still theigns and thralls.”
“I decided early on to have an eponymous album, so the album had the same name as the band, but I also thought to go one stage further and add a song with the same name. As it is the opening song, I wanted it to up-tempo and be anthemic as it also conveys some of the band’s underlying philosophy, in terms of its socio-political stance. Again, Dagda’s pipes helped to lift the song and I really enjoyed adding a bit of old-school harmony guitar here.”
As mentioned above it was the song ‘Drinking’ that really set things off for Theigns & Thralls. The album version is longer than the video and contains the ‘drunken guitarist’ intro. A anthemic song unlikely based on a 17th century poem by Abraham Cowley with a multitude of players on it, including Emilio Souto on guitar, Jonne Järvelä on mandolin and Dave Briggs on whistle. Band founder Kevin adds:
“I came across an old poem called ‘Drinking’, I thought folk-metal and drinking, what could possibly go wrong? Again, this song has a big chorus and I thought it would be good to ask all the people playing on the album to add some backing vocals and do a little video of themselves recording it so we could make it into a video.”
A great song that encapsulates the fun side of Theigns & Thralls. Catchy and with the most perfect pint / fist in the air chorus I’ve heard in a good while.
Next up is the first version on the album of the fiddle led ‘Strive’ with its thudding and ominous bass followed by ‘The Lord Of The Hills’ which has a 70’s English Folk ring to it. ‘Life Will Out’ is another song that has two versions her. This one significantly better than the one that closes things. Female vocal from guest appearances from Celtibeerian accompanies Kevin (using a voice transformer) with bagpipes and chugging guitar giving it a dark feel. ‘The Highwayman’ begins with a rather cheesy spoken word intro before tearing into a rockin’ version of the 1906 poem by Alfred Noyes. Set in 18th-century rural England, the highwayman is in love with Bess, a landlord’s daughter. Betrayed to the authorities, the highwayman escapes ambush when Bess sacrifices her life to warn him. Learning of her death, he is killed in a futile attempt at revenge. However, their souls reunite after death. Speaking of love, courage, and sacrifice, perfect themes for Theigns & Thralls. ‘Today We Get To Play’ is the most Celtic-Punk track here and actually reminds me of a handful of bands from the scene in it’s upbeat-ness!
‘The New Folk Devils’ touches on serious subject matter of judging people on their looks from Mods and Rockers then to immigrants today. Slow enough to take in Kevin’s vocals it’s followed by ‘Flora Robb’ an instrumental Folk number with excellent piping. The album part of Theigns & Thralls ends with ‘Not Thru The Woods Yet’ and a superb catchy song which brings to mind Flogging Molly. The first of the bonus tracks is ‘Over The Hills And Far Away’ and ought to be familiar to people on this side of the pond due to it’s time being used as the theme song for the classic British TV series Sharpe starring the king of Yorkshire himself, Sean Bean. Performed again in that 70’s English style. ‘The Queen Of The Moors’ is, I think, the only Skyclad song here featuring on their 2017 album Forward Into The Past. To close out the album the last three songs are a a acoustic version of ‘Strive’ followed by the shorter video version of ‘Drinking’ before the curtain comes down with a Electronic / Industrial remix of ‘Life Will Out’ that I’m afraid didn’t interest me at all at first but I rather got into after a few plays!
The album seems to have divided fans of Folk-Metal in that many were expecting the album to be a lot heavier than it is. I don’t understand though why these folk would imagine the point of setting up another Skyclad when the original is still running! We on the other hand absolutely love it and why not it’s a steady mix of Celtic-Punk, Folk, Folk-Metal and classic rock! Saying that at just under a hour it is far too long and some of the bonus tracks are a bit unnecessary. Perhaps it might have been better to release them independently as a EP. Now that the album is out Theigns & Thralls have put also become a ‘touring band’ in their own right but as of going to press gigs are mainly in Europe excepting a short tour her in December taking in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Kent and Lancaster.
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It was in Ireland that Celtic rock was first clearly evident as musicians attempted to apply the use of traditional and electric music to their own cultural context. By the end of the 1960’s Ireland already had perhaps the most flourishing folk music tradition and a growing blues and pop scene, which provided a basis for Irish rock. Perhaps the most successful product of this scene was the band Thin Lizzy. Formed in 1969 their first two albums were recognisably influenced by traditional Irish music and their first hit single ‘Whisky in the Jar’ in 1972, was a rock version of a traditional Irish song. From this point they began to move towards the hard rock that allowed them to gain a series of hit singles and albums, but retained some occasional elements of Celtic rock on later albums such as Jailbreak (1976). Formed in 1970, Horslips were the first Irish group to have the terms ‘Celtic rock’ applied to them, produced work that included traditional Irish/Celtic music and instrumentation, Celtic themes and imagery, concept albums based on Irish mythology in a way that entered the territory of progressive rock all powered by a hard rock sound. Horslips are considered important in the history of Irish rock as they were the first major band to enjoy success without having to leave their native country and can be seen as providing a template for Celtic rock in Ireland and elsewhere. These developments ran in parallel with the burgeoning folk revival in Ireland that included groups such as Planxty and the Bothy Band. It was from this tradition that Clannad, whose first album was released in 1973, adopted electric instruments and a more ‘new age’ sound at the beginning of the 1980s. Moving Hearts, formed in 1981 by former Planxty members Christy Moore and Donal Lunny, followed the pattern set by Horslips in combining Irish traditional music with rock, and also added elements of jazz to their sound.
There were already strong links between Irish and Scottish music by the 1960s, with Irish bands like the Chieftains touring and outselling the native artists in Scotland. The adoption of electric folk produced groups including the JSD Band and Spencer’s Feat. Out of the wreckage of the latter in 1974, was formed probably the most successful band in this genre, combining Irish and Scottish personnel to form Five Hand Reel. Two of the most successful groups of the 1980s emerged from the dance band circuit in Scotland. From 1978, when they began to release original albums, Runrig produced highly polished Scottish electric folk, including the first commercially successful album with the all Gaelic Play Gaelic in 1978. From the 1980s Capercaillie combined Scottish folk music, electric instruments and haunting vocals to considerable success. While bagpipes had become an essential element in Scottish folk bands they were much rarer in electric folk outfits, but were successfully integrated into their sound by Wolfstone from 1989, who focused on a combination of highland music and rock.
Brittany also made a major contribution to Celtic rock. The Breton cultural revival of the 1960s was exemplified by Alan Stivell who became the leading proponent of the Breton harp and other instruments from about 1960, he then adopted elements of Irish, Welsh and Scottish traditional music in an attempt to create a pan-Celtic folk music, which had considerable impact elsewhere, particularly in Wales and Cornwall. From 1972 he began to play electric folk with a band including guitarists Dan Ar Braz and Gabriel Yacoub. Yacoub went on to form Malicorne in 1974 one of the most successful electric folk band in France. After an extensive career that included a stint playing as part of Fairport Convention in 1976, Ar Braz formed the pan-Celtic band Heritage des Celtes, who managed to achieve mainstream success in France in the 1990’s. Probably the best known and most certainly the most enduring electric folk band in France were Tri Yann formed in 1971 and still recording and performing today. In 2017 celtic-punk band Les Ramoneurs De Menhirs 
By the end of the 1960’s Wales had produced some important individuals and bands that emerged as major British or international artists, this included power pop outfit Badfinger, psychedelic rockers Elastic Band and proto-heavy metal trio Budgie. But although folk groupings formed in the early 1970’s, including Y Tebot Piws, Ac Eraill, and Mynediad am Ddim, it was not until 1973 that the first significant Welsh language rock band Edward H Dafis, originally a belated rock n’ roll outfit, caused a sensation by electrifying and attempting to use rock instrumentation while retaining Welsh language lyrics. As a result, for one generation listening to Welsh language rock music could now become a statement of national identity. This opened the door for a new rock culture but inevitably most Welsh language acts were unable to breakthrough into the Anglophone dominated music industry. Anhrefn became the best known of these acts taking their pop-punk rock sound across Europe from the early-80’s to mid-90’s.
Whereas other Celtic nations already had existing folk music cultures
before the end of the 1960s this was less true in Cornwall and the Isle of Man, which were also relatively small in population and more integrated into English culture and (in the case of Cornwall) the British State. As a result, there was relatively little impact from the initial wave of folk electrification in the 1970’s. However, the pan-Celtic movement, with its musical and cultural festivals helped foster some reflections in Cornwall where a few bands from the 1980s onwards utilised the traditions of Cornish music with rock, including Moondragon and its successor Lordryk. More recently the bands Sacred Turf, Skwardya and Krena, have been performing in the Cornish language.
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