Take a trip with me into the wooded glades, misty mountains and ethereal realms of Adfeilion. The Bloodstock Metal To The Masses South Wales 2025 winners, have cleverly launched their sophomore album before they take to the New Blood stage at Bloodstock. So this gives you a week to get to grips with the band before they will enthral you the same way they did the Patti Pavillion this year. Categorized as Post Folk Metal, Adfeilion sealed their place at Bloodstock amongst a very tight set of finalists by not only being a terrific live act but also being the most culturally and spiritually Welsh band on the bill, theirs is music that has been carried down through the age of Arthur Pendragon (famously Welsh) until the present day, the melodies of tales long past evolved into the music of today.
Rhyfelwyr which translates to 'warriors' is a triumphal journey through captivating soundscapes as this five piece teach anyone who may not know what Post Folk Metal is, what it can be. Devoid of vocals, except for lilting spoken word at the end of Sanctuary to welcome the final part of the album. Any sort of singing is never really needed on this record as they tell these epic and fanciful tales through their music. The use of synths being especially prominent as they are used to encapsulate many different instruments, from wind instruments such as flutes and pipes, to synths and piano and also strings and atmospherics that make up the 'folk' trappings that are so prominent to what Adfeilion do.
The acoustic guitar too proves to be a key instrument to the Adfeilion approach, it is used to craft a broader sound, drawing the metallic moments back to a place of elemental beauty, the repeating/layered beginning of The Hallowed Glade a great example before the heaviness erupts into a powerful chug, it also brings emotion to the beginning of The Woad King, before this cascades into some soaring electric guitar and strings as the heaviness drops again against more acoustics, there’s a sense of loss and darkness on The Woad King which takes a central role on the album, it’s also the only track, I think, that has electronic and acoustic drums.
On the other hand a track such as Altar Of The Oak, has the brooding bass driven persistence of Megadeth right up until that omnipresent acoustic guitar takes the shape of a mandolin, like the synths using modern technology to flesh out the instrumental usage on this record as there’s what I think is a jaw harp which evolves towards some atmospheric progging that is in the territory of both Yes and The Ocean, if that makes any sense at all, it’s an undulating, brooding piece which shapes the heavier output of Adfeilion. The myriad of instruments on Rhyfelwyr, all build like the bricks to a house from the ground up until the whole piece just jumps out of the speakers at you.
Taranis has immediacy to it beginning with a drum pattern from Over The Hills And Far Away, some expansive percussion and even some body and fretboard tapping from the acoustic player the undulating riffs seeping into the next track Dawn Breaker, the most metallic of the songs on this album, putting some rhythmic doom alongside pipes, you can certainly hear the post-metal elements come through when they lock into repeating grooves on a track like Dawn Breaker. Sanctuary however goes down another route with a lot of Iron Maiden gallops in the main body, like the more serpentine, elongated Maiden of today.
Adfeilion are an enigma, each album, each song, is a story, telling mythic, epic tales drawn from the cultural past of the Celtic nations, weaving folklore with history through audio cinematics. Adfeilion to me anyway, have a lot of influences from the works of Mike Oldfield, the way they build their music through repetition, instruments you wouldn’t always associate with ‘metal’ and their strong link to folk and traditional music means that they stand out on any stage. Rhyfelwyr shows them at full power, each virtuoso performance captured brilliantly as they create a tale that will take them down more complex roads and stages across the country. 9/10
Rhyfelwyr comes out 1st of August, so I suggest you pick up the album in readiness to see them take to the stage at TGR 16 from The Green Rooms, Treforest on the actual release date and then on the New Blood Stage Saturday 9th August at Bloodstock Festival.
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