To understand what the album is all about I must quote from the sleeve notes: "Celtica celebrates the juncture where ancient and modern meet, exploring the many roads music has traveled from it's distant Celtic home fueled by trumpet, saxophone, hammered dulcimer, and the ever present fiddle, composer Oliver Schroer treats us to a joyful palette of sound in twelve original tunes, each arising from a common Celtic ground." Viewed in this context the album is quite pleasing. The quality of the musicianship is excellent, although the first track put me off a little, when after starting well with the fiddle taking the lead, it lapsed with the saxophonist's solo going off with some modern jazz riffs! But what about the rest of the album? Well it is good, very good in fact. It has some nice tunes that -- if played with a bit more drive -- would sound great.

This album should be viewed as simply nice music that is more suited to being background music in a Supermarket or a Hollywood film where the musical director is not a real folkie. To be fair to Oliver, he may just have to run the gambit of criticism from the traditionalist folkies.

The third track, 'Crazy About You' has a good catchy tune and backing. The album really starts here. As 'Celtic music' I found the next track, "Peter & Diane' slightly boring. The tune would have been more at home on a CD of classical music. After hitting the fast forward button, 'Shorelines' is good but it screams out for a more enthusiastic / adventuristic backing, as the piano is too light weight! Up next is 'Hannah', which has a good start, but as it progresses it gets very wishy washy and goes nowhere, and I felt this tune was begging for some lyrics, particularly because at 6 mins 25 seconds it is too long. 'Celtic Festival' has a good interesting underpinned Latin American rhythm, but is it Celtic? 'My Best Friend' is a bit bland and even at 3 mins 48 seconds is a bit long -- another tune that begs for some lyrics. The same goes for 'Sun on a Cloudy Day'. The first line of a song might be: "Sometimes I wish I could be a…" But I digress. 'Swinging Down the Path' is fine, but a bit bland as a Celtic tune played on the fiddle, and might sound better on bagpipes. However, 'Paddy Goes to Heaven' is a brilliant tune and damn good reason for buying the album. Pity it only lasts 3 mins 17 seconds and fades out just when it gets going!

On a lot of instrumental albums of Celtic music, you find that each track is usually made up of a melody of 3-4 like sounding tunes that compliment each other. Most musicians realise that 3 or 4 minutes of the same tune can be a bit boring, and this is the reason they combine several pieces. It makes the music just that bit more entertaining for the listener. Perhaps this is why Celtic music is always better played live. Actually, Schroer's tunes will likely make their way into others' repertoires, perhaps eventually even into some Canadian sessions.

This is an album of newly-composed old sounding tunes -- some of which I would swear I have heard before! One or two of the tunes absolutely cry out for some lyrics, and I have a feeling it will not be long before a song-smith uses the tune. Celtica is worth a listen. So the old saying is true, you shouldn't judge a book by looking at the cover; same goes for music albums.