|
Review Navigator   FeaturesContestsReviews
| Clann ZúRua2003 G7 Welcoming Committee 
  Review by: Adam See others by this writer ![[staff]](/images/icons/staffsticker.gif){kind=icon}
Clann Zú (link) Only registered users can post comments 
 
Published on September 12th 2003
“And he sat & he prayed & he prayed & he sat & he prayed to St. Augustus, St. Brigid, Padre Pio, patron saint of all sinners, patron saint of all fools, patron saint of every fucking dying crawling thing beneath him, shouting out the names of the dead & forgotten. And he cried out for Christs sake help me! For Christs sake get me out of here! God of all sick things get me the fuck out of here!” So ends “Words For Snow,” the first song on Clann Zú’s Rua, a wonderfully original and inspired album by this Australian / Irish band. It’s just a sample of the surprising intensity this group puts forth on their debut. Clann Zú play an eclectic mix of styles, with a rhythm section firmly rooted in electronica, instrumentation from Irish folk music and dark melodies that call to mind Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Declan de Barra has an epic voice. When brooding he sounds at an Irish version of The Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan, although he can move at a moment to soaring vocal highs. Russell Fawcus’ violin is captivating and a central instrument on the record. The band’s world music focus isn’t too dissimilar to that of Joe Strummer’s Mescaleros, if only much darker. I’ve seen reviews compare Lach Wooden’s “sound manipulation” to that of DJ Shadow. While I’ll leave the electronica namedropping to the qualified, I will say that these elements blend surprisingly well with the the traditional Irish instrumentation. The 10 songs that make up Rua were remastered from their original release and sound fantastic in their current form. With the volume turned up this is a record you can completely loose yourself in. From the almost danceable “All The People” to the gothic, string-driven “Five Thousand More” to the Celtic-punk vocals of “Crashing to the Floor,” there’s a rare intensity here. To top it all off, de Barra’s impassioned vocals are multi-lingual and jump from English to traditional Gaelic. Clann Zú sounds like nothing I can think of, making them notoriously hard to describe. I apologise if I’ve stumbled a bit, but if you ask me this is pretty fucking brilliant. People who liked this also liked:          ![X-Ray Spex - Germ Free Adolescents [expanded]](/images/covers/thumb/x-ray_spex-germ_free_adolescents_expanded.jpg) Please login or register to post comments. What are the benefits of having a Punknews.org account?
i thought their name came from the replacements song where it goes "something to husker something to du" i can't remember the name of it now. in german an umlaut (spelling) >? is to ad an e after the letter in question effectively. this would mean that if both are umlated the it would be hoosker doo phonenetically but that sounds stupid to me. i'll always pronounce it husker doo. whith a short u. then a long one. motorhead had a n umlaut over the esecond o and noone bothered with it. I saw these guys for the first time LIVE concert in Fort Mclowd Alberta canada, in July. declan de berra (lead singer, jumped off the stage and crowd surfed it was awsome. i bought there two CD's after i heard the first song. lucky for me i was also doing minor prefroming and i got to talk to them back stage! they are so cool. best guys ever. i have 1 million songs on my computer and tons of CDs and now i basicly only listin to these guys. Actually beautiful... the music is dark and light, and has'nt superficial letters. Lights below is so powerful....last night it excally brought some tears to me eyes.. This album is fabulous. Refreshingly dark and melodic. "Husker Du" is Norwegian for "Do you remember?" actually, but Norwegians don't use the ü with the dots, so I guess it's not Norwegian afterall ... amazing cd, just got it in the mail today, absolutely breathtaking hus.ker. doo and thats that. Yep, it's definately called Irish. Gaelic is different - unspoken nowadays. Small population of SW Ireland still speaks Irish. this doesn't help me pronounce husker du, guys the people of Ireland call the language Irish. i've been corrected by them when calling it Gaelic. I could find translations of the lyrics with an English-Gaelic translator, so it's likely that Irish/Gaelic are interchangable terms here... according to the g7 site the languages used are english and irish. No, it's called Gaelic. the language is called "Irish". not Gaelic. the promise ring song "make me a mixed tape" has the best pronounciation of "husker du" ever... man, i can just picture davey strutting around in some sort of fucked up top hat singing that song. i drink to kill the pain. Fuck, these guys are incredible. Jesus Christ this is a good album. damn canadian distribution...i can't find this anywhere in boston... i may have to buy it online Good god, I just downloaded a few songs, and I will be purchasing this in the very near future. this reminds me of irish portishead...i should think i'll buy this one hmm hungryjoe: I'll announce winners tomorrow. We're on hold today in respect to Mr. Cash. This sounds pretty interesting, definately something to check out. absolutly amazing, i have like 2000 tracks on my computer that i've d/l over the past month( new Computer) and this is almost the only band that i listen to. Clann Zu, Husker Du. Husker Du, Clann Zu. very impressive stuff. |
