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            |/       |/        |/            |/      |/
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            Artist......: Valais
            Album.......: Valais
            Year........: 2022
            Genre.......: Black Metal

            Type........: Retail
            Label.......: Signal Rex
            Language....: English

            Source......: WEB
            Encoder.....: libFLAC 1.3.1
            Quality.....: 1402kbps avg. / 44.1kHz / 2 channels

            Tracks......: 5
            Playtime....: 00:36:51
            Size........: 434.41MB

            R.Date......: 2025-03-03
            S.Date......: 2022-03-04
            Url.........: http://signalrex.bandcamp.com/album/valais


            01. I                                               9:43
            02. II                                              1:54
            03. III                                             9:45
            04. IV                                              1:43
            05. V                                              13:46


            Originally released into the digital aether in 2021,
            the self-titled debut album from the Irish project
            known as Valais sees a physical release on Signal Rex
            this March. As if tying up the disparate threads of
            popularist contemporary black metal, 'Valais' is a
            work both broad in scope and focused in its intention.
            This album throws together elements of DSBM, the
            cavernous atmospherics of Blut Aus Nord, the
            persistently simple rhythms of early Burzum, and even
            a hint of drab black 'n' roll in places.

            But Valais demonstrate a refreshingly blasé attitude
            to influence, preferring instead to craft an album
            that very much walks its own path. The production
            offers a conflicted duality between black metal's
            homespun lo-fi charm and the more contemporary impetus
            toward sizeable and immersive soundscapes. The result
            is an odd mix of contradictions, with expansive and
            layered guitar tracks somewhat hampered in their
            creation of melodramatic builds by garage quality
            drums. Vocals eschew the reverb drenched animalism of
            many similar releases, opting instead for an immediacy
            more common to raw black metal. Trademark black metal
            rasps sit close to the ear, and further grant the mix
            an organic quality that seems to fight against the
            music's drive toward the epic.

            This dualism between intimacy and size is rife across
            'Valais'. It comes to define how these lengthy tracks
            progress, as the humbleness of old school black metal
            feeds into the modern aspiration toward macro
            statements of humanity's decline. The traditional
            black metal elements across this album feel almost
            twee when set against the cavernous dark ambience and
            doom-laden guitar leads that end up dominating the
            music by the close.

            But far from this making 'Valais' confused and
            cluttered, this is a case of achieving the best of
            both worlds, as the expansive contemporary influences
            find their contrast in the raw and personal nature of
            true-blue old school black metal, and in turn these
            elements are elevated by being placed in such epic
            soundscapes. As a result, even the most derivative of
            riffs don't feel as such when placed in their proper
            context. Valais are totally focused on telling stories
            with their music. Any appeal to old school
            sensibilities or modern trends is purely incidental as
            this artist - rather than reinventing the wheel -
            simply takes pre-existing tropes both old and new and
            manipulates them into these lengthy and immersive
            soundscapes. In the process they are able to expand
            the mood and expressive range of each individual
            element