As I made clear in my review of 2018s Nyárutó, Hungary’s Dalriada is one of my new favorite discoveries of the last few years. Their infectious brand of bouncy but still crunchy, ethnic folk metal is just fun as heck even after 10 albums. And album number 11 is no different.

Continuing the seasonal/month named albums, Őszelő (September) is a little more upbeat than Nyárutó, has far the more of the band’s killer, more romping moments, even if they repeat a bit. Vocalist Laura Binder is still a wonderfully amiable frontwoman with guitarist András Ficzek delivering a few growls and rasps as he has done in the past.

Starting with the rousing chorus ( which they deliver consistently) of opener “Ezer élet, ezer csillag”, you get almost an hour of top notch Dalriada. It’s stoutly produced, with nice beefy guitars and robust bass. The Eastern European backbone of the lavish keys and violins keep things deeply in folk metal , happy territory even with a couple of moody ballads and mid paced hymns. And they are all excellent, with nice builds and choral peaks such as the title track ” Betyár-altató” or  “Örökség” (with some cool children background singers). But it’s the more uptempo thrashing jigs like “Dúvad”, “Huszáros” and “Őszi ének”,  where I’m grinning from ear to ear

Of note, there is a version of this release (which I had to grab) that has another 2 discs; an audio CD and a DVD of a live show (remember those?) recorded in October 2019 on their 15th Anniversary Show at Barba Negra Music Club. It’s a pretty neat show with great audio and some stirring renditions of the band’s songs with particularly fun renditions of some of the band’s earlier songs like “Népdal” and “Tűzhozó” as well one of my favorite songs from Nyárutó, “Komámasszon”. Binder also performs surprisingly well in a live environment.

As with Nyárutó, this album isn’t replacing Ígéret , Napisten hava, or Áldás as my favorite Dalriada albums, but it’s yet another quality album from one of Europe’s best-kept secrets in the folk metal genre.

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