| CD REVIEW Valkyr |
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Band : Valkyr When I gave The Mirror Has Two Faces its first listening session, I did so without having looked into the info concerning this Truro (a town near Carrick in Cornwall, at the South West end of England) based instrumental band, so I was somewhat amazed at finding quite a few of the tracks having a familiar tune. In the case of the track "Toccata", the familiarity was quite obvious because it's an cover of J. S. Bach's piece by the same title...and album closer "The Mirror Has Two Faces Pt.2" was highly remeniscent of a song once played by Wishbone Ash. So, off on an info search I go, and what do I find out? Valkyr was founded in late 2006 by guitarist Anthony White (whom since apparently also started an acoustic side-project and a solo thing), shortly after joined by drummer Rich Butler-Lee (a now 19 year-old also active with Deja Groove and Ninja Storm Force). The idea was to record Metal interpretations of classical masterpieces, using the influences from the likes of Metallica, Porcupine Tree, Rob Zombie, Static X, Dream Theater, Opeth, and Steve Vai, to give said originals a modern touch, marrying Thrash Metal with Progressive movements and classical undertones. Following some early recordings, the duo got interest from several record labels, and within five months the duo saw themselves nominated in the "Best Metal Band" category at the Cornish Live Music Awards. Shortly after recording their debut full-length Chooser Of The Slain (could an album title bé any more appropriate with a band name like that?) the band recruited guitarist Guy Frazer-Wright (holder of a BA in contemporary World Jazz, guitar teacher, and currently busy working on his own album) and bassist Rob Strookman (also only 19 of age) on a session basis (and for live purposes; live debut was on the 17th of July), but the two liked their work with Valkyr so much, that they have joined on a permanent basis. November 2007 saw the band going into a shoot session for the video of "The Exorcist" (which then got posted at Anthony's personal MySpace page), and in January of this year, videos of how to play tracks from the first album was posted at youtube.com/valkyrtv.That first album (issued by the band in late August of last year), by the way, already saw Valkyr delve into the works of prominent composer like J. S. Bach (for the tracks "Doom Of The Gods" and "Demons Of Death"), Ludwig von Beethoven ("Dark Omens"), Karl Orff ("O Fortuna", an adaptation of the "Carmina Burana" cantata), Edvard Grieg ("Mountain King"), G.T. Holst ("Jupiter"), and Welsh New Age artist Karl Jenkin ("Adiemus") amongst others. Now, you won't ever find me saying that I am a Classical music expert, but I've listened to a fair bit of music in that genre (and well beyond the mere established and more popular composers at that too...in fact, I've got quite a nice collection of Classical music indeed!), so I won't even pretend to know from which Classical master's musical pieces White and Co took their stuff this time around! "Bringer Of War" though, sounds vagely familiar as a piece brought already by another Rock/ Metal band...Diamond Head perhaps? Oh well of course...the intro to "Am I Evil", for goodness sake! In all, you get nine very nice instrumentals which may all have a familiar melodiy in it, depending on how musically broad-minded you are, and the whole will bring you a small 55 minutes further in time with each listening session. One bit of negative criticism I need to put down (or you wouldn't understand my raving about the band's potential when compared to the lower rating I'm giving the album) is for the fact that White was the need to produce and mix everything himself. I mean, the sound on the recordings is somewhat off, with the guitars a bit too sharp and the drums not coming through as one might expect from modern day recordings! So, my advice to White for the future: have a good recording engineer explain you what you have to do with the mikes to properly record those drums, get a fuller sound on the guitars, maybe even bring that bass to the fore a bit more? Musically, everything is quite okay, the modern re-write proving a high sensibility in that area, and with an sufficiently high level of technical play to boot...as you will be able to witness by surfing to the "discography" section at the band's own valkyrband.com (no, for once I will not direct you to the band's MySpace page...although you're welcome to go visit at own leasure...because on the latter the band only a total of three track, and on their own website you can listen to àll 19 tracks of the two albums combined! Dó check out the individual members' websites too, if you feel so inclined). Originally, the band was going to play a European tour between June and September in support of the album, but due to the fact that White will be working on a concept album due for release somewhere in 2009 during the Summer months, all dates were scratched. 85/100 Tony. |