AKA the Afro Celt Sound System. Exactly What It Says on the Tin: ten songs about different kinds of seeds. Wait, no. I mean it's a mix of West African music, Celtic music, and electronica.
Apparently their roster has been very fluid over the years, and for a while there wasn't much distinction between "band member" and "guest musician".
Not much to say about individual tracks. There's a few fast parts, but most of the album is pretty chill.
So, about the name: They used to be called the Afro Celt Sound System. They decided to shorten their name to just Afro Celts, but their album covers still have the old band name, apparently because they thought the name change would confuse fans. Or music stores. I don't know what universe these guys live in, but where I come from, a band having different names on the covers of different albums is a heck of a lot less confusing than a band putting a fake name on their album covers. What, are they afraid of their non-fans discovering their True Name? Does something bad happen if I write Afro Celts Afro Celts Afro Ce
Wikipedia says they went back to the old name on their subsequent albums, and they now regard the name change as a dumb idea.
You know what else is a dumb idea? Not including any lyrics in the liner notes! I know you're too cool to tell us what you're singing, and we're too dumb to understand whichever language you're speaking anyway, but do you really want people to mishear the lyrics of "The Otherside"? (Seriously, I can't be the only English-speaking person who hears them singing "fuck it" over and over.) Google doesn't reveal anything helpful.
And holy carp the strings on "All Remains". Did they suddenly turn into an adult contemporary pop band? Should the credits of a Disney film be scrolling up right now? On the other hand, some of the percussion is very reminiscent of the sound that exploding badniks made in the Genesis Sonic The Hedgehog games. So that's a point in their favor.
If you only listen to one track, listen to: Two tracks, actually. "Rise" and "Rise Above It" are one 13-minute-long song, and the centerpiece of the album. Starts slow and builds up to epicness.
