Mini Review: Corvus Corax

Corvus Corax

Hello wonderful people!

It's time for another mini review but instead of a song, it's of a band active since 1989 known as Corvus Corax.

History time: Their name means Common Raven in Latin they were formed by Castus Rabensang, Wim (Venustus) and Meister Selbfried (Master Selfpeace) in Eastern Germany. That line up has changed however, the current lineup of band members are Martin Urkasvan, Castus Rabensang (Castus Ravensong) Panpeter, Harmann der Drescher (Harmann the thresher), Hatz (hunt), Teufel (Devil), and Wim. Meister decided to be a manager instead of an active musician for the band in 2005 and Jordon Finus replaced him in 2006.

Why am I reviewing a band that has nothing to do with the other bands I've been reviewing lately? Because it's a week before Halloween and these guys are dressed for Halloween every time they perform, one of them looks like Jack Sparrow and one of them has devil horns on his head. They must be mentioned in my Halloween reviews!

Corvus Corax is an interesting band, their solo instruments are bagpipes and they are known for playing Neo-Medieval music with authentic instruments. Go watch some of their live shows you will see them playing instruments that you might not have seen (or heard of) in your life. On that note, the music they play is quite difficult to interpret the existing manuscripts but they manage to make their music as authentic as possible with a number of resources. They have used documents that 'condemn profane music' as an indicator of what the music might have sounded like as well as nineteenth century scholarly treatises for information. Those treatises are sometimes unreliable as they impart more nineteenth century interpretations of medieval music than factual information on what the music was like.

Other than medieval music why does this band need to be mentioned on the Halloween blog? This is what the band looks like... 

That is why they need to be mentioned and it also needs to be said that there's a guy who looks like Jack Sparrow, but it is indeed not Johnny Depp. There's a guy who has devil horns, a dude in the back with a bad-ass beard, some guys with some interestingly creepy masks and they are wearing tribal like outfits. Other than that they're music is quite entertaining. You'd think at first 'why would I listen to medieval music? It's probably really boring? They make it interesting with all their unique instruments and intense performances. They are also quite creative, in 2005 they started a project called Cantus Buranus which is a full length opera set to the original Carmina Burana manuscript lyrics (the music for the opera was fully composed by the band and has nothing to do with the Carol Orff work) and is performed with a symphonic orchestra, choir, and a medieval ensemble combining traditional symphonies with medieval minstrel-like melodies. The project is on CD and DVD with a separate CD/DVD for live performances that was released in March of 2006.

To all the fans who weren't aware of this band after 2005 you missed their debut concerts at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire that occurred around mid-October. Recently they haven't been back to the USA for any concerts. However that may change because they were featured in the HBO show Game of Thrones with their performance of the song "Ballade De Mercy" in the pilot episode. Hopefully it will boost their popularity and lead to a higher demand for them to appear in the United States so the unlucky people who can't fly out to Europe can go see them.

Another down side is there songs are in the medieval from of whatever language not the current version and online translators don't really recognized them which leads to not knowing what is going on in the song. Most people probably don't learn the old forms of languages so it's a hunt trying to find translations if you don't have the lyric booklets.

So if you like medieval music and bagpipes Corvus Corax is the band for you! If you don't like it, give them a chance you might find something you like about the band.