Back in September of 2005 I was introduced and highly impressed by the Swedish band, Valkyrja, who had sent me their debut demo, ‘Funeral Voices.’ Sure it wasn’t anything new to the scene musically, but it was a fine piece of high speed melodic black metal that was produced adequately and really had me yearning for more. Two years later the band’s debut full-length, ‘The Invocation Of Demise’ was released and it surely did not disappoint. The band, which at the time of this recording consisted of J. Lindgren on Bass, A.L. on Vocals, S.W. & A. Hed on Guitars and J. Wallgren on drums, offer up seven new songs and two older songs from the demos re-recorded on this album.
It seems Valkyrja stuck with a similar sound as displayed on their demos, but everything seems much more elaborate and perfected on this debut album. The music is of course still within the high speed brutal black metal genre with plenty of exciting riffs and killer solos, but it has a strange sort of catchiness to it since everything just flows perfectly and shows that the band worked their asses off and rehearsed endlessly to craft a compelling recording. I’m assuming the band draws some influence from their fellow countryman in Marduk, Watain and Ondskapt, though the band definitely has their own unique voice, which separates them from the flock of talentless clones out there.
While I will label the band as high speed or brutal black metal, it isn’t necessarily always the case. True most songs are brutal, but as already stated the band isn’t afraid to add some nice melodic sections, interesting breakdowns or just slower songs in general, such as, ‘The Vigil,’ which is the slowest and somewhat epic in its overall structure, while parts of the ‘Sinister Obsession’ are quite similar too.
The presence of sporadic acoustic guitars adds a peaceful side to the chaos and I’d say they compliment the music truly well too. It’s also interesting how despite the speed there are some truly ominous sounding riffs within this album, which is what all good black metal albums should have. However Valkyrja is all about playing fast and absolutely pulverizing the listener and this they do flawlessly on songs like, ‘As Everything Rupture’ & ‘Purification and Demise’ as well as most everything else on this album. It’s also worth mentioning that this album was recorded in Necromorbus studies and therefore the production is stellar and I must also admit that lead vocalist A.L. has a great growled rasp scream, which works perfectly with this music and actually sounds quite unique amongst the many black metal vocalists that all sound exactly the same.
Since this recording Valkyrja inked a deal with Metal Blade Records and released their sophomore recording, ‘Contamination’ earlier this year, which I still need to get my hands on. However until I get my ass to the record store I’ll keep spinning this album, because I really haven’t listened to it much in recent times and that’s a shame since Valkyrja absolutely kills!
Well maintained blog..
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