“I live my life on and on, not knowing what I am.” The fourth full length album by the dark / death / doom metal trio Valborg from Bonn starts off with primitive thoughts and deep feelings in the shadow of senselessness and weariness of life, feeding ugly kinds of aggression against others and the self. From an analytical point of view Valborg repeat themselves with provoking gesture: they become (seemingly) more and more primitive, ugly and monosyllabic, often shouting just phrases with an utterly scornful expression. Regardless how one-dimensional and repulsive this method might affect you, here we have a brilliant example of a band using the vocals as instrument to create extremely strong atmospheres.
As with all bands Florian Toyka and Christian Kolf play decisive roles in, they influence each other, and be it in not so obvious ways; so it’s not surprise that Woburn House (with both of them) and Gruenewald (Christian’s meditative ambient doom project) had their effect especially on the moody guitar playing of Kolf whose admiration of early Anathema inspires him again and again to create pieces of music whose expressiveness pales 99% of those claiming to create somehow “dark” metal. But also the roles of keyboards in the Valborg sound cannot be underestimated when you listen to the final “Opfer”.
With Nekrodepression Valborg present another concentration of ideas which have inspired them long enough to become their second nature. Their approach has turned the doomy metal of death into rituals of unrelenting destruction and a unique descent into pure fucking darkness, flavored with Kolf’s ability to outline giant visions with a few somber chords on his guitar. Behind all darkness there’s some fragile beauty… Nekrodepression teaches a lesson of dark metal with many negative nuances, and obviously Valborg don’t need reactionary ideological mumbo-jumbo like many of the usual suspects – they let the music speak and that again should make many loudmouths speechless.
Needless to point out that the band had once more the honor to grace their album with a painting by Peter Böhme and that this one – in antique Sodom style! – fits the music like the proverbial fist in the face. In regard to the many strong and doubtlessly individual outputs of the Zeitgeister collective on the one hand and the general “development” in the metal underground, it must be emphasized that Valborg recorded four visionary albums in relatively short time all of which are true gems of idiosyncratic dark metal and surely deserve to be re-released one day on finest vinyl.
Thor Joakimsson
VITALS:
Release: November 2nd, 2012
Label: Zeitgeister Music
Avantgenre: Nekrotik Fukkoff-Bastardson-Metal
Duration: 49:11
Origin: Germany
Official site: http://www.valborg.de
Review online since: 23.07.2013 / 20:59:53
| TRACKLIST:
01 – Sakrale Vernichtung |
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