Let me start off by saying I used to know her quite well. Shit, Val and I even went out a couple of times. Then her foster parents found out where she was and shipped her back to that correctional house for women. Every once in awhile, she’d call my parents house from there and freak everybody out trying to find me. Seriously! Yeah, good times.

Well, at any rate, we’ve been backing VALKYRIE (the band) here at the dog site ever since their early demos started circulating a couple of years ago. Now they’ve got a full-length, and an actual label backing ‘em. I’m getting all misty thinking about it, y'know? You may get all misty too, in a cream-your-jeans kind of way when you hear the homegrown early-PENTAGRAM-meets-“Number of the Beast” vibe they’re sporting these days. This disc includes 8 epic odes to dark steeds, stone castles, medieval bimbos, and unlodging your battle axe blade from some poor bastard’s skull. The rhythm guitar tone is as charming and raw as a hunk of charred meat with the hide still on it. Harmonies abound everywhere, but hit home the hardest in the final two tracks, “Eternally There” and “Lost in the Darkness”, both of which pull off excellent kick-up-the-tempo moments reminiscent of “Sabbra Cadabra” or “Iron Man”. It still amazes me how shit like ANATHEMA can get so much press, and you have to practically beat people over the head to get them to listen to arse-kickers like this. Well, anyway, you know what to do, kiddies.

- Marchman

OFFICIAL SITE: www.thevalkyrierides.com

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