LORDS OF METAL (HOLANDIA)

A Polish band has released a successor of 'Heart Of The Ages' from In The Woods (their debut album of 1995) ten years after that date! The band's name is Valinor and the album is called 'It Is Night'. No, your scribbler did not immersed in a blood-hot bath full of absinth last night, where after spiders in her garden transformed into ugly, poison-green snakes. That same bastard only discovered yesterday that they still make music like this and this gave her a bit of a controlled euphoria. Many people will describe this as real 'underground' production, and that is what it is, I admit, but on the other hand 'It Is Night' creeps with spontaneous energy that arises when musicians with talent are gathered in a rehearsal room.
I suppose that the recordings of 'It Is Night' happened a few years ago, because they talk about 2003 in the quite unclear redacted biography. But this summer, Valinor performed at the Metalmania festival 2005 in one more different line-up and they are working on a new album with a new singer. On this album, the five piece band (with two excellent guitarists) was assisted by choirs (four people) and two keyboardists but these are seldom in the spotlights. What we do hear is a Wagnerian intro, common vocals and black metal screams and two guitar players who play sharp duels. The second song 'In The Mist. Part 1' is an epic one with hymn chants, until they go off at a tangent to black metal. Every song has breaks, rhythm changes and fetching, melodic guitar lines. Vocal-wise there is a wide range of diversity too. In the catchy 'It Is Night' vocals are reminiscent of Johan Edlund's (Tiamat) at the period of the album 'Clouds'. A husky mysterious sound. One hears solemn chants too, a bit later jolly carousal hymns of the Viking culture and all kinds of 'common' vocals. Honesty forces me to tell that these 'common' voices are not always that clean, particularly during the last tracks. The majority of vocals are death growls and black metal screams. 'Falseness And Struggle' sounds a bit lumbering, but closing track 'Your Love' with its doom atmosphere, leads us via a fine gitar solo to an accelerating black metal orgy.
Valinor is a seminal band for people who does not mind about polished productions, but love black metal with lucid melodies and epic elements. The level of In The Woods is not (yet) reached, but I wonder how things will evolve with these Polish musicians.

Vera :

Rating 75/100