Valhalla Awaits – Perdition
Valhalla Awaits – Perdition
Self-Released
Release Date: 08/03/24
Running Time: 22:20
Review by Simon Black
8/10
When I first moved down to Cardiff in South Wales from the Midlands the best part of two decades ago, it felt a bit like being cut off from civilisation initially. With all my friends and relatives on the wrong side of the country, I found myself frustrated by both the lack of variety in real ale and music locally. How much has changed since. Not only has the strangle hold of the frankly ‘meh’ brewery Brains gone to be replaced by a plethora of top-notch micro-breweries, but this part of the world seems to have one of the most buoyant, vibrant and top-quality underground Metal scenes I’ve ever come across. The grass roots venues may be tiny, but they exist and are easy to fill, with indeed a whole street in Cardiff catering for them. And the city doesn’t contain them either, with plenty of local talent going on to much wider recognition in recent years.
Not only that, but there’s a lot of cross-fertilisations of that resource pool, as acts come and go, or musicians share their talents across multiple acts. I am reluctant to use the words ‘super-group’, given that by its nature this is the antithesis of ‘underground’, but that’s what seems to be happening. Valhalla Awaits are one such, and this their third EP is a fairly strong symbol of just how meaty the scene is down here now. This five track EP punches hard and high, but I can see this band going places fast. Stylistically this is solid Hard Rock with a belt in round the head of Metal of the kind that doesn’t seem to grow old and tired.
The various members may be familiar to followers of The Blackout, Revoker and Buffalo Summer but these boys have been treading this particular mill since 2020. Their pedigree means they’ve done well to get noticed so far, with some juicy support slots in the bag to date and seem to be adopting the Waterfall strategy of an EP every couple of years. This is actually a pretty sensible way of working for emerging acts in this day and age, particularly when you are not tied to a label. Label contracts come at the price of loss of control, and when you can piggyback on your network of relationships from other acts, this means building the brand is easier. EP’s cost a lot less to record and release, gives you something reasonably priced to sell at gigs with a good return on investment, and the shorter release cycles means you can get out there more often with new material without the need to pad the run-time with fillers… The fact that they don’t require the attention spans needed to ingest a whole album, which seems to be beyond anyone under the age of twenty-five these days, is of course purely coincidental… [Grumpy old fart mode – disengaged…]
And this one delivers, and delivers well. All five of the songs here stand well on their own and as part of the whole. Accessible and melodic; heavy and haunting – all in equal measures. The overall feel is of just the right balance of down-tuned heaviness to keep the Metal end of the spectrum on board, but with enough melodic sentiment to keep the appeal broad enough for the Classic Rock crowd, this is a band who have got the tone pitched just right. Add to that the silky, yet gruff vocals of Andrew Hunt, and you have a bit of a winner on your hands. Even the most commercial punt on here, ballad ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’ works well as it still retains enough of the down and dirty feel to not feel syrupy, despite vocally screaming out for a mainstream audience.
I had not come across this act before, but I’ve added them to the increasingly long list of damn fine reasons for anyone to move to this beautiful part of the country.
Valhalla Awaits – ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’
TRACKLISTING:
01. Door of No Return
02. Staring At The Gun
03. Is There Anybody Out There?
04. We Remain
05. All Hope Is Lost
LINE-UP:
Andrew Hunt – Lead Vocals
Chris Green – Guitar & Vocals
Rhys Carter – Guitar
Sam Kilby – Bass
Gareth “Snoz” Lawrence – Drums & Vocals
LINKS:
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