Ale & Thunder

Ale & Thunder is a collection that doesn't pretend to be anything it's not—it's what happens when you take the modal backbone of Celtic music and run it headfirst into distorted guitars and double bass drums. I've pulled together tracks that all share the same core obsession: finding the overlap between fiddle tradition and metal's raw energy.

“The collection builds toward something rowdy and physical, the kind of music that makes you want to move.”

What you'll hear across these recordings is violin doing the work a lead guitar usually does. On tracks like "Tavern Knights" and "Rise of the Celtic Phoenix," the fiddle carries the main riff while everything else—heavy guitars, pounding drums—locks into that folk framework. I'm using a lot of Dorian and Mixolydian modes here, the scales that make Celtic music sound Celtic, but I'm playing them fast and angry. The tremolo technique on violin cuts through distortion the same way it cuts through a traditional session, just with more aggression behind it. "Swords and Songs" and "Celtic Violincore: For Those Who Come After V2" lean harder into the breakdowns—moments where everything strips back to just the metal riffing before the strings come crashing back in.

There's also something about galloping rhythms that works particularly well in this space. They're both folk-rooted and fundamentally metallic, which means I can build genuine tension without fighting the genre itself. Shattered Crown sits on that border most directly—pure instrumental, no vocals to anchor you, just the violin and guitar trading aggression over Celtic harmonic movement. The collection builds toward something rowdy and physical, the kind of music that makes you want to move.