This six piece Spanish band collectively known as Crystalmoors calls their music, 'Cantibrian Pagan Metal.' While I'm not familiar with who or what a Cantibrian is I can honestly say that it doesn't add much in terms of uniqueness to this bands music. Essentially Crystalmoors is a melodic death metal with the only real difference being the fact that the music occasionally features some clean singing, a fair amount of backing synth and folk melodies through the occasional appearance of a flute and bagpipes.
Even as the music isn't overly original or different I find myself enjoying this band. Some clever and interesting riffs do pop up now and again and some of the solos are fairly memorable too. Its good mostly straight forward melodic death metal somewhat in a Amon Amarth vein here that's capable of drawing you in and at least at times getting you fairly charged up too with the high energy levels. At times the music also has an acoustic edge and some really strong epic moments too, as best displayed on, 'Brotherhood Of The Three Banners' & 'Bellvm Cantabricvm.' Likewise the couple short folk pieces are interesting, but sort of seem out of place too. Interestingly though not much of this record is repetitive or similar from song to song, which is surely a sign of good song writing from these guys. However like I already said you may feel a little bit of that heard it before syndrome when spinning this one, but at least if what I wrote about agrees with your personal tastes then you'll most likely dig this one.
Apparently Crystalmoors has been at it since the mid 90s and has a few demos and splits behind them before this full-length a few years ago. Hopefully they are hard at work on their next album because they could very well end up being a big name in this genre if they deliver another strong album like, 'Antiqvam Exqvirite Matrem.'
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