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VALDUR “Guilded Abyss”
VALDUR “Guilded Abyss”
By Dr. Abner Mality
The Voice from the Bloody Mountain speaks once more...the silence of seven years is ended and the Beast shall roar. I’ve been a champion of these strange, hermit-like death metalers for quite a long stretch now and always look forward to their intermittent attacks.
I don’t know how “guilded” this is, but “abyss” is a word that applies for sure. If you like ultra-cavernous caveman death metal with touches of black metal and industrial around the rotten edges, this is for you. I can’t say this shows any advancement or significant change from previous works, but they can sure dish up wave upon wave of black, seething lava. “Hailing Molten Meteors” gives us a droning monolith based very much on the opening riff of “Black Sabbath”, which is arguably the track that started all this heavy stuff back in 1970. That riff keeps coming and coming but there are subtle changes as well as patterns of sound and samples floating on top that make this a bestial listen.
They keep things simple here and this is no way a “technical” album. Perhaps most crushing of all is “Doomed Pt. II”, which is slow, abyssal death in its purest form. One of the best tracks VALDUR has ever produced. It also has one of the peculiarities that distinguishe this band and that’s their ample use of sampling that gives an industrial sheen. Many of the songs are laced with sampled dialogue, electronic noises and looped soundbites. During ‘Drinking From the Chalice of Bereavement”, there’s something that sounds a lot like sci-fi laser weapons being discharged. Other samples are more subtle and take active listening to ferret out.
It’s all good if you like really bestial music, but for the first time, I’m wishing that VALDUR injected something a bit different into their formula. I can’t say it is their best, but it is very agreeable if you’ve liked their past output.
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