The music of Martin Walkyier, especially through Skyclad, often made us think a lot. It made me think of my rights, and the wrong of the powers that be. And the only reason for that is that Walkyier simply must be a pagan God himself.

 

Whereas his mesmerizing words and bewildering songcraft in Sabbat and then moreso Skyclad made us think about the way we are living our life and the way the world is going (a philosophy born of punk and pagan), his new project the Clan Destined stops me considering it at all. That’s because now, through the power of genius philosophy, mighty wordplay and awe-inspiring music I am completely convinced that everything he says is right, and was written specifically for us, there is no shadow of a doubt - the man is a genius. There is a man travelling alone on overgrown, unexplored paths. He knows not what he is searching for, but he knows that it needs to be found.

 

The music is actually pretty simple. It’s fairly modern sounding heavy metal, a little thrashy, a little punky. It’s very direct (as Walkyier’s music always is), very straight-forward and to the point, very powerful. It isn’t the heaviest album ever, but it IS the most powerful for those very reason. Funnily enough, there’s a line in the song ‘A Beautiful Start to the End of the World’ which unintentionally describes this better than I ever could: “No bombshell has hit with this impact before!” Walkyier’s perfect use of the English language perfectly sums up exactly how brilliant this album is. It’s often disputed over whether the music was written by Iscariah or Walkyrier, who had fallen out before Martin went and recorded the album, but it feels to me as though they both contributed.

 

But we would not be surprised for a second if the world was to not understand this. Maybe we are wrong, maybe others will find the magic. Maybe the destined clan is not a band, but a following, a way forward to new life