Clann Zú

An intense and brooding melting pot of genres and styles, Clann Zú’s disparate debut (re-mastered and re-released on Winnipeg’s G7 Welcoming Committee label) is impossible to describe in a linear fashion. In any given track, aspects of folk, post-rock, gothic metal and even traditional Celtic music (singer Declan de Barra is of Irish descent) can be easily identified amongst organic electronic and classical garnishes. Regardless of its refusal to be categorised (this is one of the few bands where this cliché actually holds true), Rua is a strong debut consisting mostly of vehement ballads and lyrics full of cultural angst and personal frustration. Though less inherently political than many artists on the G7 label, its lyrical content is powerful in its own agenda, (especially the spoken word sections in album highlights like "Words for Snow”) free of the kind of insincere whining that years of feigning neo-grunge and nu-metal groups have left us expecting from such descriptions. Truly, the main differentiate here is Clann Zú’s contrasting and multifarious members, each individually giving so much to the group that the sum of their parts is overflowing with inspired ideas that, more often than not, are fastidiously fused together to create a single, focused vision.