| CD REVIEW Valkyrie |
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Band : Valkyrie After spending several years within the doom-underground in the states, Valkyrie’s latest effort poses the question, why haven't these guys surfaced earlier? Well, after having spent the last six years paying their dues, their latest effort, Man Of Two Visions is finally here after several years in the making, and for those of us who like the doom/NWOBHM edge to their heavy metal, the wait was worth it. Mixing all the right vibes of Budgie, Witchfinder General, Wishbone Ash, and Pentagram; Valkyrie, led by the two bros/guitarists/vocalists Pete and Jake Davis, bring a driving record filled with a crunch laden riff structure, going from a straightforward Thin Lizzy-meets-Sabbath riff grind to more heavy dark tunes throughout the record. Valkyrie kicks off with a nice up-tempo “Running out”, which is followed by one of the prize tracks of this album, “Dawntide’s breeze”, my God, what a memorable -like riff here and also the rest of the guitar work, showing the tandem at their fiery best. Two instrumentals grace this record and one of them ”The gorge” sounds like a somewhat dark, acoustic Zeppelin-piece. Track 4, “Apocalypse unsealed” has a Wino-era doom feel, moving from slow to fast to slow again tempo-wise, and featuring a very Smith/Murray solo smack in the middle. The title track is packed with hard blistering guitars that create a brave jammin’ sound, swollen bass lines and pumping drums, all topped with soultaking melodies. Great stuff indeed, this will be spinning in my cd player for awhile. Oh yeah, just to let you know, one of the bros Pete has joined up with Baroness on guitar. 90/100 Cosmicmasseur. |