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VALDRIN began picking up momentum with the 2018 release, their second album, Two Carrion Talismans – epic, shapeshifting blackened death that was both timeless and fresh – and then eclipsed that achievement two years later with Effigy of Nightmares, whereby the band dove deeply into the bluish purple depths of ’90s melodic black metal. To hear comparisons to Vinterland, Sacramentum, and Sweden’s Dawn wasn’t mere hyperbole; it was assertive truth, as commanding as VALDRIN’s songwriting mastery.
Now, continuing that tale is VALDRIN’s most epic record yet: Throne of the Lunar Soul. 11 songs in 74 minutes, this is truly a “double album” in the old-school sense – no fat or extraneous wank, only labyrinthine songs threaded together in a manner most suiting to their Ausadjur Mythos.
With increased emphasis on dynamics as well as dramatic acoustic breaks & embellishments, the quartet leave no stone unturned in their arsenal. VALDRIN can still race and rage with the best of any black and/or death metal band past or present, but even when the slipstreaming spires of sound threaten to become dizzying, the narrative of Throne of the Lunar Soul becomes that much deeper and more intense: not every story has a clear path, nor does it stay at the same pitch and meter. But rarely do stories ever get this grandiose and engaging. VALDRIN possess some strange (or at least elusive) magick, and in Throne of the Lunar Soul have they delivered a modern CLASSIC.
Throne of the Lunar Soul by VALDRIN
