Great, another Valhalla, from Russia this time. But you know, they are not as bad as you might think. For one, they don't try to pose as Vikings, although they play Northern sounding black metal, which, if you take the name of their record label for granted, should not be surprising. These guys come from the same place as Thy Repentance, and although the two bands differ musically, conceptually and spiritually they have a lot in common. Similarly to Thy Repentance, Valhalla's lyrics serve as a reflection of their perceived surroundings and celebrate the darkness of the Ural nature, but then the band could have picked a better and more original name for themselves. Fine, forget the name as long as the music is good. The music, I must say, is in fact quite good: appropriately cold and raw sound, clear production, fast to mid-paced songs with grim vocals, frequent melodic excursions, wintry keyboards and occasional, and not at all unpleasant, acoustic guitars. Valhalla did not aim so much at creating something very technical or brutal, but rather, much like Thy Repentance, they chose to focus specifically on the atmospherics of their natural surroundings. And while "Winterbastard" does not match the epic feel of such classic work of this ilk as Enslaved's "Vikingligr Veldi's," it does succeed on its own level because the band managed to create compelling enough songs while maintaining evocative feeling all throughout the album. It may not be a spectacular work, but it is also not some cheap imitation full of plastic emotions. No, this is a respectable outing, and it definitely wouldn't hurt fans of Nordic, Viking-flavored bands like Thyrfing, Mithotyn, and of course older Enslaved to check out this band.

© 2001 boris