Patiently waiting for the new Valdrin to be available.

#nowplaying #valdrin #blackmetal #newmusicfriday

Napierdalać – The State of Love and War Review

By GardensTale

First impressions are everything, folks. Despite Napierdalać’s fledgling status, I was immediately encouraged by its presentation and professionalism. The State of Love and War is the band’s debut album, yet everything looks as tidy and organized as most label-backed promos, even using their own website to host the files for the music. This is a downside regarding the promo sheet, though, where reading like it was written by a label is not necessarily a boon. The sheet describes the album with superlatives aplenty and waxes poetically about a Shakespearean plot underpinning the orchestra-backed black/death metal. Does the music live up to the highfalutin chest-thumpin’ advertisements?

Well, not quite. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing of value in The State of Love and War. At its best, Napierdalać reminds me a fair amount of Valdrin, whose Effigy of Nightmares was a major highlight back in 2020. After the intro, the opening duo hits hard with aggressive and malevolent black metal backed by orchestration that sounds straight out of an evil king’s court. “DNR” steps it up another notch, its choruses blasting wanton brass like the band borrowed half of Fleshgod Apocalypse for a few minutes. “To Crown a Pale Horse” mixes portentous doom into the Emperor-esque blackened grandeur for a nice change of pace. The vocals sound truly vile in the best way, a nasty, gnarly rasp that conveys sheer iniquity and rage, and it combines really well with the pseudo-baroque symphonic sections.

Sadly, a lot of time is wasted on far less enticing experiments. “Sonnet 41” is one-third black metal ballad and two-thirds maudlin half-whispered spoken word poetry over lethargic open chords. The title track is nearly 7 minutes of staccato piano chords with little sense of flow or progression, killing all momentum and desecrating its corpse before unleashing the 10-minute closer “Exitus.” This track makes for a fine finale overall, but by the time it’s over, we have nearly an hour of music behind us, and it could stand to lose 20 minutes easily. Besides the mentioned momentum murderers, the first five tracks feel especially interchangeable, using similar formats in riffing and supplemental symphonics alike.

This may be at least partially attributable to the production as well. The State of Love and War sounds both stark and claustrophobic, like a dusty hallway in a poltergeist-ridden house with the contrast slider cranked way up. Its efficacy at conjuring a gothic atmosphere as well as the decent mastering score suggest that this has been a deliberate choice, and for that I must commend Napierdalać, but it’s not without its downsides. Without room to breathe, the orchestral contributions get squeezed into only the most forward components without adding further depth and detail. With the homogeneity in songwriting across many of the tracks, such depth and detail could have gone a long way to add more variation. Instead, the variation now primarily comes from the doddering deviations mentioned earlier.

The State of Love and War wins a few battles, but loses the campaign. Listening to one or two songs, their flaws may not immediately reveal themselves. Napierdalać has a solid grasp on an enticing sound that could have fueled a fun, more succinct version of this album to successful completion. Instead, conceptual overreach led the band to misjudge several inclusions and repeat themselves too often elsewhere. The more successful variations like “To Crown a Pale Horse” and the closer give me hope that the band can find a better way going forward, though, and I look forward to hearing its next attempt.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 128 kbps mp3
Label: Self-released
Websites: napierdalac.bandcamp.com | napierdalacband.com | facebook.com/napierdalacband
Releases Worldwide: April 4th, 2025

#20 #2025 #Apr25 #BlackMetal #BritishMetal #Emperor #FleshgodApocalypse #Napierdalać #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #SymphonicMetal #TheStateOfLoveAndWar #Valdrin

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#InvisibleOranges-TheMetalBlog
Exploring The Far-Flung Lore of Valdrin's "Throne of the Lunar Soul" (Interview)

https://www.invisibleoranges.com/exploring-the-far-flung-lore-of-valdrins-throne-of-the-lunar-soul-interview/

#Valdrin #ThroneoftheLunarSoul #blackmetal #BloodHarvest

For @HailsandAles' #BlackMetalMonday:

The Infernal Sea: Black Witchery

https://song.link/mmtcj8q3nsk08

FFO #Necrowretch #Ninkharsag #Valdrin

Holdeneye’s Top Ten(ish) of 2023

By Holdeneye

I’m happy to report that I don’t have much to say on the personal front this year. I’m happier and healthier than I have been in quite some time. Sure, raising a teenage daughter is no easy feat these days, but at least I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to restructure my life to better prepare for this foreseeable occurrence. On balance, my work was way less stressful in 2023—even if I did take part in the single-most frustrating and complicated incident of my entire career this year—and it’s amazing how much that has improved my life. I genuinely wish everyone could be so lucky.

But as good as things were generally this year, I went through an extended rough patch when it came to enjoying and writing about new music. A lot of factors contributed to this rough patch, but it all left me wanting to seek solace in the company of some of my all-time favorite records instead of any current assignments. So, a couple of times this year, I dumped all of my promos and took a break. Now, I’m the kind of person that doesn’t commit to many things, because if I commit to something, I want to do it well. And when I can’t do that, it fills me with guilt. This accumulating guilt left me questioning whether or not I deserved to hang around these parts any longer; in fact, I started writing up my resignation letter multiple times. Fortunately, I never put any of these on Steel‘s desk, because I now know that I want to stick around this place in whatever way I can. I work with a great cast of characters here, and I’d miss them terribly. But ultimately, it was the music that saved me. A few of the records on the following list hit me at just the right time, reminding me of who I am and why I’m here.

I want to thank all of my fellow writers and editors for the many hours they devote to the cause of great music. Thanks to Steel Druhm for the indomitable will with which he rules this realm. How he does everything he does here never ceases to amaze me. Finally, thanks to you, the reader, for being such an integral part of this place. It’s always fun to hear from you, whether you’re heaping praise upon, or throwing tomatoes at, what I’ve written. So, without any further ado, I present to you a clumsily curated list of obscure oddities. It is designed with one purpose: to have as little overlap with my colleagues as possible. Behold, the List of Trvth!

#ish. All for Metal // Legends – As I said in my Heavy Moves Heavy entry for “Mountain of Power,” this one is pure Holdeneye-bait. Living within the same realm as Manowar, Sabaton, and Brothers of Metal, some of my all-time favorite acts, All for Metal’s debut Legends was a wonderful surprise. When it released this past summer, it was just the shot in the arm I needed, its bouncy, cheese-filled anthems plastering a big, dumb smile on my big, dumb face. The songwriting is great, and the powerful vocals from Antonio Calanna nudge the album towards true greatness. Like Brothers of Metal before them, All for Metal quickly became a Holdeneye Family road trip soundtrack staple. Sample: “Goddess of War”

#10. Lord Mountain // The Oath – Lord Mountain may have struck early this year, but The Oath has stayed by my side since its release back in January. A gloriously olde-timey mixture of Sabbath and Manilla Road, The Oath is a scrumptious platter of doomy traditional metal. The riffs are big, and the fantasy storytelling is bigger, as Lord Mountain hands us a war hammer and sends us on a danger-fraught quest. Everything here, from the style, to the production and Ozzy-like vocals screams ‘old,’ and the tight 36-minute package is so well balanced that it is equally qualified for a short, chill-out session or a tough grind in the gym. Sample: “The Oath”

#9. Mystic Prophecy // Hellriot – Ever since I first heard the singles for Mystic Prophecy’s 2007 album Satanic Curses, these guys have been my personal archetype for guitar-centric heavy metal with a power metal bent. The band’s beefy (I simply cannot talk about these guys without using ‘beefy’ as an adjective) guitar sound is matched by the raspy croon of R.D. Liapakis, a man whose voice seems as strong as ever after decades of wailing at the mic. Hellriot is the sound of Mystic Prophecy releasing their best material in sixteen years, and it easily attained the status of one of my most-listened-to albums of 2023. Sample: “Revenge and Fire”

#8. Frozen Crown // Call of the North – It’s been quite a while since a power metal album really grabbed me, but Call of the North rekindled my love for the cheesiest of metals when it released back in March. Where many bands of this style lose me with vocals and guitar work that sound too sugary for these ears, Frozen Crown puts the power in power metal with their extremely heavy riffing and with the incredible vocals of Giada Etro. As Eldritch Elitist said in his review of Call of the North, ‘Frozen Crown operates best with the pedal welded to the metal,’ and rarely does that pedal leave the floor here. The band’s successful use of melo-death stylings on Call of the North confirms a suspicion that I’ve had for quite some time: the vast majority of melodic death metal would work better with clean vocals. Yeah, I said it. Come at me. Sample: “Call of the North”

#7. Gatekeeper // From Western Shores – Last year, Ironflame was my tried-and-true, straightforward traditional metal year-end list entrant, and this year’s spot goes to Gatekeeper. From Western Shores sounded good on my first listen, but I didn’t fully grasp how well-wrought these songs were until I returned at a later date; suddenly, it clicked. Traditional metal and fantasy stories go together like a Kirkland can o’ chicken mixed into Cup Noodles, and the results here are no less savory. Tale after tale is told to the tumultuous tune of titanic riffs and twisted-testicle wails, and I simply can’t get enough of it. I’ve been rereading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in over a decade, and this record has been an excellent musical pairing for such an occasion. Sample: “Shadow and Stone”

#6. Disguised Malignance // Entering the Gateways – It’s about time some brutality showed up on this list! Landing just two short weeks after an insanely hyped and equally lauded release from Tomb Mold, the teenagers in Disguised Malignance quietly released an album in the same vein. Drawing on old-school death mechanics and adding a spritz of proggy technicality, Entering the Gateways blew me away with its scope and execution. It’s almost like these youngsters don’t know how rude it is to kick in the door and outdo many of the scene’s heavyweights with your debut record. As I alluded to in my review for Entering the Gateways, Disguised Malignance didn’t overdo the progginess here; they found ‘the right balance between thinking-man’s and stinking-man’s death metal.’ Damn, that’s a good line. Sample: “Beyond (Entering the Gateways)”

#5. Frozen Soul // Glacial Domination – The phrase ‘glacial domination’ perfectly describes how this album won me over: slowly, and with devastation. Like many other critics around these parts, I initially dismissed Glacial Domination as just another one-note death metal beatdown, but because something kept drawing me back, I eventually realized something: I really like this one note. Groovy death metal is my favorite death metal, and Glacial Domination is all groove, all the time. The way these Texans combined earth-churning Bolt Thrower rhythms with a bit of Swede-death, some hardcore-style breakdowns, and the occasional creepy synth passage put this record firmly within my wheelhouse, and like the titular glacier, it was been carving my valley ever since. I could have kept things simple and just used all ten proper tracks here to form my entire Heavy Moves Heavy list. Yes, it’s that good. Sample: “Arsenal of War”

#4. Legendry // Time Immortal Wept – At the risk of falling prey to recency bias, I’m including Time Immortal Wept at #4 because it has utterly bewitched me since I discovered it a few short weeks ago. Legendry’s prog-infused traditional metal is simply magical, and its 43-minute runtime feels like half of that. With a great balance of heavier metal parts and psychedelic prog elements, these songs have achieved legendary status in my heart in very short order. I honestly feel like I’ve been listening to some of these tracks on classic rock radio for my entire life; that’s how much they resonate with me. My first listen of Time Immortal Wept was on the treadmill, and when it finished, I wanted to keep training so I wouldn’t have to stop listening, even for a minute—this is no small feat considering my lifelong hatred of cardio. I just wish I’d discovered this record before the vinyl was sold out. Sample: “Chariots of Bedlam”

#3. Enforced // War Remains – What can I say that I haven’t already said about Enforced? These guys fucking rule; it’s as simple as that. War Remains may not be my favorite Enforced record, but it’s not much of a step down either. These guys sound more pissed-off than ever, and the half-hour runtime makes repeat listens almost a necessity. War Remains is truly an album of all occasions for me. If I’m happy, I put it on and bounce around with joy. If I’m angry, I put in on and exorcise my rage. If I’m sad, I put it on to give myself an energizing slap across the face (after I properly acknowledge and give space to my sadness, of course. It’s 2023 for heaven’s sake). If my kids are being too loud, it put it on and crank it until I can no longer hear them. War Remains is just another piece of evidence confirming that Enforced is the most consistently awesome thrash band running at this point in history. Sample: “Hanged by My Hand”

#2. By Fire and Sword // Glory – Steel Druhm dodged a huge, yuuuge bullet with this one. Glory lay unclaimed in the promo bin when I happened upon it one day, and if I’d taken enough time to realize that the band’s overtly religious themes were satire (read: if I’d listened to “Leave a Little Room” all the way through until the part where its satirical nature is obvious), I would have claimed it and done terrible, score counter-violating things to it. Musically, Glory is heavy in all the right ways, and honestly, this is what I wish Ghost sounded like. The preachy spoken word parts and the beautiful singing combine with the music to add just the right amount of creepy, cringe-inducing irony to the experience. This is such a bizarre album, and I love every single moment of it. Sample: “The Feast”

#1. Sacred Outcry // Towers of Gold – I can be relatively brief here since I slobbered all over this record fairly recently. Towers of Gold is the kind of record that made heavy metal so attractive to me in the first place; it’s big, bold, and filled to the brim with electric energy. Founder and bassist George Apalodimas outdid himself with these compositions, and landing a godlike vocal talent like Daniel Heiman helped the record achieve perfection. Not a single note is wasted; there’s not one moment of this album that doesn’t push forward its powerful fantasy tale. I can say without hesitation that if I hadn’t encountered this album in 2023, I probably wouldn’t be writing this list. Towers of Gold reminded me just how much heavy metal means to me, and it reminded me how much of an honor it is to be able to share great music with you all. Thanks, Sacred Outcry. Sample: “The Voyage”

Honorable Mentions

• Warcrab // The Howling Silence
• Valdrin // Throne of the Lunar Soul
• Helms Deep // Treacherous Ways
• Finality // Technocracy
• Cruel Force // Dawn of the Axe
• Owlbear // Chaos to the Realm

Non-Metal Record o’ the Year

Bards of Skaði // Glysisvallur: Musick from the Frozen Atlantis – Thomas von Wachenfeldt is no stranger to my year-end lists, but he’s never earned a spot quite like this before. Bards of Skaði finds the Swedish death metal maestro leaving his growls at home and performing all strings, keys and programming as he teams up with fellow music professor Göran Månsson on flutes and percussion to provide an enthralling journey through the fallen kingdoms of history. Drawing upon Nordic folk, classical, film score, and ambient styles, Glysisvallur is one beautiful track after another. Whether enchanting (“Yxdans”) or haunting (“Nifelhel”), this music has been the perfect soundtrack for my recent walks and drives throughout the moist and misty Pacific Northwest winter. My love of this record just further cements Wachenfeldt as one of my favorite musicians on earth, regardless of style.

Olde Record o’ the Year

Amon Amarth // With Oden on Our Side – When I was having a hard time wanting to listen to new music early on this year, no record from my past made an appearance more often than this one. With Oden on Our Side is a perfect record, a bona fide 5.0/5.0, and its crushing force was a soothing balm to my aching soul this year. According to my streaming service’s year-end summary, I listened to “Gods of War Arise” 56 times; I like to pretend to be a Viking by taking cold showers and ice baths, and nothing gives my simple mind power over my substantial matter like that track does. This was the first death metal album I ever purchased, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.1

Disappointment (and Amusing Anecdote) o’ the Year

Project: Roenwolfe // Project: Roenwolfe – This one hurt. I really liked Project: Roenwolfe’s previous album, Edge of Saturn, but this one just fell completely flat for me. I found the music pretty uninteresting overall, and my review highlighted the strained vocals of singer Patrick Parris as one of the record’s flaws. This is where the story should probably end, but an entertaining event occurred that made things a little more interesting. Shortly after my review went live, I saw a post on Project: Roenwolfe’s now-defunct Facebook page—yes, I follow the band and support them. I even bought this record even though I didn’t care for it—where Parris announced his retirement from music. He noted that his voice may not be what it used to be, and that he doesn’t make music to have it compared ‘to the Iced Earths and Cages of the world or get slandered for not sounding enough like them in some cases.’ I said to myself, ‘Huh. It kinda sounds like he’s talking to me.’ He then went on, saying that words spouted by random internet people ‘are a powerful motivator, but….can do as much harm as good, (While I’m on that topic AMG I love you, but Holdeneye can hold a kiss for my rear-end.) At that point I said to myself, ‘Oh. He’s definitely talking about me.’ In another paragraph, he said that his post was not made towards any specific people, but color me skeptical after he mentioned his butt, my name, and my lips in the same sentence. In truth, I found this all pretty amusing, but I do feel bad for the guy. I’m grateful for the great music that he’s been a part of, and I really do wish him the best in all of his future endeavors.

Song o’ the Year

Sacred Outcry // “Towers of Gold” – A labyrinth with as many twists, turns, and surprises as the cursed structure it describes, “Towers of Gold” does pretty much everything. It has fast-paced riffing, stratospheric vocals, and blistering leads, but it also knows how to play things slow, throwing in theatricality and atmosphere aplenty. The song puts us right in the shoes of the story’s main character as he navigates an impossible maze, and in the end, we get to share in his grisly fate. The story is a powerful warning of what can happen when we seek anything—riches, power, success, certainty, peace, even happiness—at any cost. It’s a warning that we’d be remiss not to heed.

#AllForMetal #AngryMetalList #BardsOfSkadi #ByFireAndSword #CruelForce #DisguisedMalignance #Enforced #Finality #FrozenCrown #FrozenSoul #Gatekeeper #HelmsDeep #Legendry #Listurnalia #LordMountain #MysticProphecy #Owlbear #SacredOutcry #Valdrin #Warcrab

Valdrin – Throne of the Lunar Soul Review

By Holdeneye

Back in 2020, I heaped an enormous amount of praise upon Effigy of Nightmares, the third full-length album from Ohio’s Valdrin, and while that record constitutes the exceedingly rare occurrence where time tempers my initial enthusiasm (I’d probably bring it down to a 4.0 at this point), I still hold it in high regard. I was caught up not only by Valdrin’s melodic black metal songwriting ability but also by the band’s incredible brand of storytelling. All of their albums tell stories within the same universe, with each one representing different points in the timeline and the perspectives of different characters, and while I can’t claim to have taken the time to fully grasp the entire narrative, I can appreciate the way that said narrative is delivered. Now, while Effigy was a mini-album by the band’s usual standards, follow-up Throne of the Lunar Soul is a double LP, reverting back to the lengthy tendencies that Valdrin displayed on their first two albums. This tendency gives me some pause, but let’s see if these guys can wow me again.

Very little has changed in the stylistic department since Effigy; all of the same comparisons still stand. The demonic presence of Dissection, Watain, Dimmu Borgir, and Emperor can all be felt here rather strongly, with keys and tremolos galore. I really appreciate the amount of atmosphere that Valdrin works into their songs, as it complements the more aggressive sections quite well. In fact, I’ve embedded what I consider to be the most interesting track on Throne of the Lunar Soul: the title track. The track is surprisingly subdued and beautiful much of the time. The key passages are captivating, and the guitar solo has a classic shred feel that brings such a wonderfully strange dynamic to black metal. The track moves between feelings of major scale triumph and minor scale defeat, and even delves into moments of funereal dirge. It’s a beautiful song that aptly demonstrates Valdrin’s willingness to experiment within their chosen genre.

And that experimentation makes Throne of the Lunar Soul a diverse journey, as each of the songs has its own character. “Paladins of Ausadjur” has a victorious gallop, “Seven Swords (In the Arsenal of Steel)” uses blacksmith noises as part of its hammering rhythm, and “Vagrant in the Chamber of Night” leans heavily into Valdrin’s keyboard use with some classical flourishes. “Holy Matricide” begins with some incredible finger-picked acoustic guitar, and when combined with its nefarious subject matter, it sounds like it could be on the Blasphemous soundtrack. These are just a handful of examples of an album filled to the brim with quality.

In fact, Throne of the Lunar Soul might be a little too full of quality material. This is one of those strange situations where an album is almost uniformly great, has no moments that one could consider even remotely bad (or even mediocre), yet it still lacks a certain something. In this case, it lacks focus. Each of these songs is great in its own way, but many of them travel a good 2-3 minutes past their most optimal limits. There are five tracks over seven minutes here (and three over eight), and that takes an enormous amount of focus to properly appreciate. And it’s hard to appreciate when I know in my soul that this album contains another 4.0 or higher within its bloated corpse. Ultimately, I’m still not able to rate Throne of the Lunar Soul any lower than “Very Good” thanks to Valdrin’s incredibly dynamic approach to the style.

I guess you really can have too much of a good thing. While Throne of the Lunar Soul never really drags and is, in fact, rather captivating throughout its 74-minute runtime, I just can’t help but imagine how amazing it would be (and how highly it would list) if the songs and the album itself were shortened to more reasonable lengths. Still, Valdrin is a melodic black metal powerhouse, and with a focus on editing, their next album could be incredible.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Blood Harvest Records
Websites: valdrin.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/valdrinausadjur
Releases Worldwide: November 24th, 2023

#2023 #35 #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #BloodHarvestRecords #DimmuBorgir #Dissection #Emperor #MelodicBlackMetal #Nov23 #Review #Reviews #SymphonicMetal #ThroneOfTheLunarSoul #Valdrin #Watain