Info
- Band(s): Valdrin
- Label(s): Blood Harvest
- Release Format(s): 12" vinyl, Cassette, CD
- Release Year: 2023
- Review Date: July 5, 2025
- Author(s): Seth Nekromancer
Before starting this review, I took a few minutes to get to know Valdrin better before diving into their music, and I found some interesting details. Beyond what Metal Archive describes about their themes, which are science fiction and mythology, I discovered that they’ve created a conceptual universe they develop as a saga throughout their lyrics, and from what I see, it continues on their albums. Needless to say, this is a plus for the band and the work itself.
Now, getting into the dark aura of the album, ‘Neverafter’ opens with a short synthesizer introduction and then gives way to a staggered eruption instrumentally speaking. It starts at mid-tempo, and after a few dead seconds, everything explodes in intensity with fast tremolo riffs that sweep away to the rhythm of the keyboard, as if chewing the melody of some classical opera. The most outstanding aspect is the instrumental quality of execution and precision demonstrated firsthand by the musicians. An example of this is that in the middle of the song, acoustic guitars recreate a classic atmosphere previously recorded by the keyboards, then resume the charge until the end, crowned in a display of guitar solos.
The following track is more ambitious in terms of the musical versatility of the guitarists and keyboardist, with a brief introduction that’s more of a nod to epic European Power Metal but blackened (Luca Turilli came to mind). Like the previous track, after the introduction, they attack without mercy. The voices are in the perfect tone for this type of metal where melodies and keyboards are interwoven like a spider’s web throughout the work. This voice and tone have a similarity to Shagrath from 1998, with its medium but consistent depth.
Stop! I must emphasize that on the next track, ‘Seven Swords (In the Arsenal of Steel)’, the rhythmic base, when the blast beat isn’t present, is oriented towards power metal. The guitars in their riffs include semi-arpeggios, and even progressive traces can be found in some passages along with all the elements released by Valdrin, hatching but with greater difficulty and intricate execution movements. The same happens in ‘Paladins of Ausadjur’ but with quite varied and brutal drum development, as in ‘Sojourner Wolf’, which leaves me with the feeling that they intentionally left all the best for after the 5-minute mark where melodic acoustic passages are present between synthesized solos and an epilogue of flamenco guitars that drown in a chaotic and fast spiral while everything is consumed.
I think that from ‘The Hierophant’ onwards, the march becomes more symphonic and musically deeper. ‘Vagrant in the Chamber of Night’, which is the second shortest song on the album, has a riff that’s on the podium of the most brutal, as it’s fast, melodic, with something similar to tappings when it changes the bars and then dilutes in octaves.
Now, in the final quartet of the work, there are two songs that caught my attention the most. One is ‘Holy Matricide’, as it’s more oriented towards Melodic Black Metal. In fact, it has traces of what Dissection created in the past, fuelled by a set of symphonic drawings on the guitars that extend their black roots of influences in an Old Man Child’s ‘Pagan Prosperity’. The subsequent ‘Throne of the Lunar Soul’ is almost 9 minutes of musical delight, following its structural formula: introduction, first verses in mid-tempo rhythms, then bridges where they step on the accelerator, passages of melodic guitar solos emanating feeling and virtuosity without forgetting the accompanying choirs sublimely chiselling the ending.
With ‘Two Carrion Talismans’ and ‘Hymns of the Convergence’, this work ends very well. ‘Two Carrion’s…’ follows to the letter what was shown in the previous tracks, although I felt a greater emanation of emotion in this track, as if they had wanted to culminate the album with a flourish together with the instrumental ‘Hymns of the…’ which transports us to that imaginary world of struggle, blood, death, honour, courage, and heroic deeds that are whispered like the almost medieval wind along with the piano accompaniment. The truth is, they achieved a magnificent closing of a conceptual work full of dark nooks and virtuosity.
If I have to look for previously created references that combine all the elements present in this work, I think it would be the legendary Bal Sagoth or why not Stormlord. For fans of those bands, ‘Throne of the Lunar Soul’ will be a great discovery.
Blood Harvest
- Country: Sweden
- Style: Death Metal, Black Metal, Thrash Metal
- Links: Homepage, Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp, Youtube
