Valdur – “Berserrker” (Stereogum Premiere)
The ballsy Mammoth, Lakes California trio Valdur play blistering blackened punk/war metal (featuring a Norwegian-born vocalist named Thor). They aren’t crusty like Bone Awl. It’s a close-cropped brutal death-inflected BM sound: Think of the recent recordings of Philadelphia’s (great black hope) woe captured during a Western blizzard and with a more straightforward/traditional, less twisting/mathy/post-black forward push. Which isn’t to say this music isn’t complex: Valdur create an epic, dense atmosphere and display a surprisingly graceful ear for melody and a strong dynamic pull within all that buzzing. They also bring along an uncompromising DIY spirit to the table: As with their 2007 self-titled debut and 2008 split with Lightning Swords of Death, the band released this new “self-funded” full-length, Raven God Amongst Us, on drummer Sxuperion’s Bloody Mountain imprint. (You may recognize the album title from the name of a track on that Lightning split.) Its most immediate track is the single “Berserrker,” a kind of fight song for the band, and maybe USBM in general.
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