Valkyrie - Fear (2020) / 87%

Time Flies but What Remains?

The Adams brothers are back with a new Valkyrie album five years after the excellent Shadows and it’s perfect for those sunny weekends where you do nothing except drink beer and chill on the patio. Just like today, actually. This summer is blurry, time flies, it feels like March was last week but metal and beer is always there to keep me grounded and entertained. Good news since their songwriting is both laid back and engaging, crafting entrancing nuggets of good feelings.

With Valkyrie, you get the twin lead guitar harmonies of Peter and Jake Adams, those guys are emotional masters. They’re able to convey so much with their instruments, it’s almost unreal. Peter is of course known for his time in Baroness (he played on Blue Record and Purple, two of my favourites) and Valkyrie certainly navigates similar areas in their sometimes perilous travels. You’re getting the same sort of fluid, idiosyncratic leads that he was known for during his years with the famous Virginian band. That style of particular guitar player makes Fear such an airy album, it also ends on such a note with the ghastly instrumental conclusion “Exasperator”.The rhythm section is also fantastic, the bass is thick and never overshadowed too much by the riffs and the drums is inventive and melodic in an odd but technical way. The vocals are also immensely powerful for me(the highlight would be “Fear and Sacrifice”), for a dude who’s more of a guitarist, it’s well done. While sporadic, they’re clean, soulful and gives another heavy rock layer to the album. Those guys don’t need a powerhouse singer, they’re not arena rock, they’re in fact the opposite. It’s heartfelt, concise while elaborate metallic rock done by dudes in full control of their instruments and direction.

They’ve always been a band that’s been blurring the thin lines between classic, hard rock and heavy/doom and while it’s still the case on that 2020 record, it’s a different beast than it was on records such as Man of Two Visions from 2008 or their self titled debut from 2006. Their essence is retained but Fear is a more subdued version, it’s calmer and less tempestuous. Nevertheless, their urgency and relatively fast tempos are still intact.

Valkyrie’s past (and sometimes actual) approach could be described similarly to Slough Feg in a way as they also include their fair share of proto metal (read Thin Lizzy) alongside NWOBHM (dual lead guitars for the win) but of course, they love Sabbath and American doom (read The Obsessed) and stoner metal (past comparisons to The Sword were appropriate, not so much now) quite a bit too. Fear brings a newfound progressive tinge and it’s very pleasing. Firmly evolving in the proto rock/metal niche, I do feel they served their material with a modern sauce. A compact sauce that’s never too salty or sugary. For me, modernity means the ability to really work on the production to make it sound tight and dreamy at the same time. It’s taking (possibly) dated sounds to make them sound contemporary and robust.

On their second album for Relapse Records, the veterans were able to evolve and offer us something different while still retaining their roots. It’s high quality atmospheric heavy rock that’s still inclined to give doom metal a chance.

Lüger– Cosmic Horrör (2020) / 85%

Leather in Space

The dangerous Montréal quartet is back with a four track extended play and it’s pure fire. I liked their 2018 opus (the Realm reviewed it) quite a bit but Cosmic Horrör (the umlauts are important, of course) sees the band improve and push their sound to the next echelon. They’re a pretty unique beast in the Montréal metal scene with their apocalyptic blend of influences and I’m stoked to see them on stage again whenever it will be possible.

“Space Coma” opens the record with blistering drums and features insane guitar solos with a melodic psych rock edge. It’s an effortless mix with their bass heavy approach to Motorized and Pentagrammed heavy metal. Jim Laflamme’s semi-harsh, tough vocals are emphasized by being judiciously but sporadically used (they only appear midway through “Call of the Snaggletooth”) and they feed the riffs perfectly.

The opener of side B appropriately named “Psychotropia” could have been twenty minutes as far as I’m concerned. It starts with an extended spacey intro that wouldn’t be out of place on a Ufomammut album before descending in their usual airy but demented riff heavy affair. It’s like driving a Martian bulldozer that’s been fueled with acid.

There’s a lot of stuff in Lüger’s cosmic Harley Davidson’s leather pouches but it’s so adequately condensed in one potent formula that’s both original in its dated but timeless recipe. Incorporating more than just heavy metal, doom metal or hard rock, the boys also feed their machine with adequate doses of punk, thrash, space rock or even hints of black smoke here and there. It’s raw but it sounds like a wall of brick that’s been built by master builders who look like deviant bad boys based on what your boomer aunt thinks. Even if there's a sense of familiarity to their music, it's exciting and enticing enough to be a fucking good record.

They’re the type of bands that are able to develop an image that becomes deeply tied to their sound. Leather, shades, tattoos, wearing vests while being shirtless etc. All bands have an image, the ones who say that they don’t have are the same ones who will gladly tell everyone that “they’re one a political band”. The important is to craft a solid and interesting look that will instantly embody the music you play. Well, Lüger plays rocky, punky sexy metal exploring the vastness and deserted confines of space and they look the part. The old school video game look of the artwork also does a great job at describing their sound. Undead evil knight? Space Castle? Yes, you betcha.


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Draghkar - At the Crossroads of Infinity (2020) 87%

Killer artwork by Karmazid, as always.

A Clash of Kingly Elements

Draghkar, one of the children of LA based guitarist Brandon Corsair finally released its first full length after a bunch of demos, splits and extended plays and it’s a different but meaner beast now. The band now solidified with a strong lineup composed of members of bands such as Drawn and Quartered (freaking underrated American legends) or Vastum (one of today’s best death metal bands), delivers one hell of a record.

The Mediterranean climate of California surely shaped that album. Corsair’s love for the Greek olde goldies could also have been an important factor too, I guess. Maybe! Draghkar basically sounds like death metal that’s been compressed with the warlike nature of Hellenic black metal but also with a truckload of other disparate elements such as epic heavy metal and Swedish and Finnish old school death metal.

Sophisticated while armed with an unhinged and aggressive approach, the tightly knit debut album is rife with excellent solos from Kelly Kuciemba. His leads add another dimension to the band (see the intro of “Beyond Despair, The Dawn of Rebirth”) and reminds me of both the “non melodic” melodic death metal that some few bands did so well (Deathevocation? Intestine Baalism? The racist cocks of Arghoslent?) and a style of raw, heartfelt epic metal that could be something cooked by King Fowley of Deceased in Mortuary Drape’s bloody kitchen. Slow without being doom/death metal, their speed is perfect for me as I like my death metal varied but mostly mid-paced and crushing. There’s a few longer tracks crammed with riffs such as the title track and it’s an expansion of the same ideas found on the shorter tracks but pushed to its epic paroxysm.

The vocals of Daniel Butler (Vastum, Acephalix) are on point, high powerful rasps that could work for a lot of extreme metal styles are something I dig. He’s replacing Brandon who’s focusing on songwriting and guitar and that’s a respectable decision even if I liked his more cavernous vocals on releases such as “The Endless Howling Abyss”. Butler’s vocals are relatively intelligible and I dig the production on them, there’s a slight martial edge reminding (Hail of Bullets, God Dethroned?) and that’s a good fit to the belligerent songwriting. The bass is also another clear highlight of that record, it’s loud, significant in the mix and even has clear moments to shine “An Erosion of the Eternal Soul”, it’s fun to hear such a lively bass in a non technical death metal band, it’s not something I encounter often.

The mix of styles here demonstrates how well those guys know their metal as it’s a seamless progression of extremely good things and could appeal to a diverse crowd into riffs and solows. There’s an academic feel to the whole thing and I really like that. Akin to a wizard studying their craft for years to unleash the most potent spells, Draghkar is a knowledgeable student of all sorts of metal schools who were able to craft something special.

It’s a short album but there’s some a few ambient moments that could have been somewhat extended such as the chanting at the start of “Seeking Oblivion” or the conclusion of the title track. I felt that there’s a mournful angle that could be more thoroughly explored without losing the expert musicianship and ear for melody those guys showcase on that thunderous debut. 

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