Release:

AFM Records / Soulfood
18.02.2011

Info:

The roots of the Hungarian Folk Metal band Dalriada reach back to the year of 1998, when forming member and band leader András Ficzek started a heavy metal band in the West-Hungarian town of Sopron. In the following years he was able to gather several young and talented musicians and they started to combine heavy, death, thrash and folk metal elements with hungarian folklore.
After the first years of experimenting, Dalriada was formed in Sopron, Hungary in February 2003 with the intention of combining metal and Hungarian folk music, thus fostering the incredibly rich heritage of Hungarian folk art. Due to other influences some elements of death and gothic metal are also present.

The word „Dalriada” can be familiar to many people. It’s a historical name, the name of the first kingdom of the Scots, but based on some linguistic studies it may have an ancient Hungarian origin with the meaning of “battle-song”. From 2003 until the end 2006 the name of the band was “Echo Of Dalriada” in order emphasize the Hungarian meaning, but at the beginning of 2007 the name was simplified to “Dalriada” to have a shorter name without English words in it.

We can say, that the genre of Dalriada’s music is folk metal, because there are Hungarian folk music elements used in the music, there are folk song extracts in the songs, and even there are some Hungarian folk-song covers in the repertoire of the band. Of course, the basic of the music is metal, from heavy to death. Furthermore some gothic atmosphere is also present.

Lyrics of songs are in Hungarian; music and Hungarian lyrics make each other complete. Mostly the lyrics are self-made, but like in music, there are lyrics from folk songs, and there are some poems of a famous Hungarian poet - Janos Arany – set to music.

2003: The band records its first demo album called "A Walesi Bárdok".

2004: In the beginning of november the first album called "Fergeteg" has been released.

2006: In february the second album, „Jégbontó” has been released. Despite member changes the band writes and records its third album till the end of the year.

2007: The band’s new management is Zombie11 Produkció. In march the third album is out, it’s called „Kikelet”.

2008: In April the fourth album was released, it’s called „Szelek”. This album opened on the second place in the Hungarian charts.

2009: The band has been nominated for the greatest hungarian music award. They had a great success on almost every summer festival, and they got invitations from abroad more and more often. They produced the fifth album, which contains more hungarian folk music elements than any other, with the poems of one of the greatest hungarian poets János Arany. The album, Arany-Album has been released on the day of PAGANFEST 2009 in Budapest on the 28th of September, where the band was performing with bands like Korpiklaani, Alestorm, Die Apokalypstichen Ritter and many more big names. Cooperation with a traditional Hungarian Folk-band from Sopron, called Fajkusz Banda starts. Dalriada records their fifth album with the trio and takes them to festivals and several club-gigs.

In 2010 the band participates in almost all greater hungarian summer festivals and gets its first opportunity to play in Germany. Work for their sixth album, called „Ígéret” begins. The band was able to convince Jonne, singer of Korpiklaani, to sing in one track. In the end of summer 2010 a videoclip has been recorded to one of their new songs.
Several gigs in the surrounding countries, such as Slovakia, Romania (Transilvania) and Serbia followed.

The band is as ambitious as on their very first day and are planning for 2011 to reach several European countries, such as Germany, France, Russia and others. Of course, if possible, they will be there on the bigger international metal festivals as well.
Let the Hungarian Folk Metal roll!

Line-up:

Laura Binder – lead vocals
András Ficzek - guitar, lead vocals
Mátyás Németh Szabó – solo guitar
István Molnár - bass
Tadeusz Rieckmann – drums, harsh vocals
Barnabás Ungár – keyboards, harsh vocals

Former members:
András Kurz - keyboards
György Varga - bass
Marcell Fispán - guitar
Gergely Nagy - keyboards