This week I've received a request to listen through and review a band's discography and I intend to do so dammit! SO without further ado, I present to you Valkyrie A.D. the horror themed Melodic Death Metal solo project created by Corey Thomas. Valkyrie A.D. have been releasing music consistently since 2019, having released two EPs and very recently a single titled In This Haze of Green and Gold.
Starting with their debut EP, titled Tales From The Wicked, immediately you'll hear a bit of a more raw, slightly quiet production, the drums are a bit mechanical but they are mixed well and aren't distracting by any means. In Corey's guitar playing I can hear the influence coming from bands like Death (later albums like Spiritual Healing etc) and The Black Dahlia Murder, who feel very present in the vocal performance and songwriting aspects overall with Valkyrie's discography. With the reference to those bands, what I mean is I can hear those death metal/melodic death sounds that begin to touch over into some more technical guitar playing that presents a wider range of melodies and sound, but it never touches over into tech death at all. The vocals sit at a mid range but tend to dip slightly upwards and downwards in pitch here and there. The vocals often sound a bit textural and sometimes are layered for dramatic effect, which definitely gave me that The Black Dahlia Murder sense. This album, compared to their next EP which I'll delve into soon, is a fun first release with a lot of good moments, and I enjoy the blending of Melodic Death Metal with hints of 90s death metal, and even the slightest touch of some Epic Heavy Metal in the melodies (listen to Megaton Sword and then come back and listen to the guitar leads in "She"). My favorite tracks on this EP are definitely from the second half of the EP, they feel much more refined and expansive.
Valkyrie A.D. released a follow up EP in 2020 titled Vile and this album steps it up in nearly every measure, from production to songwriting it all feels so much more matured than what was happening on the last EP. One thing I appreciate with Valkyrie A.D. is their lack of overly down-tuned guitars, I feel so many bands rely on them to achieve "heaviness" but it ends up causing so many young guitarists to simply rely on the top string to sound heavy rather than utilizing the full extent of their guitars to create the expansive melodies that Valkyrie A.D. is pulling off on this album. One of the biggest improvements here is the marriage between the vocals and the songs themselves, the last EP had moments where the vocals felt like they were dropped on top of the track, but here it feels more organic of an album overall. I also appreciate the further embracing of this heavy metal sound in songs like "Moon of the Wolf" and "Chaos Will Reign" even if it wasn't their intention in the first place. Despite being labeled as Melodic Death Metal, there's plenty of moments that have some 80s style heavy metal and thrash moments in the instrumentation, the vocals are without a doubt what brings it all back to the Melodic Death Metal side however.
Finally we have the new 12-minute epic that Valkyrie A.D. released June 6th of this year, titled In This Haze of Green and Gold. The song fully embraces the "melodic" in Melodic Death Metal, focusing on these more ballad-like guitar melodies that match the song's depressive lyrical content. You can tell this song is a much more emotional offering from Valkyrie rather than their horror-fueled songs. The song sees a return to the more raw production that we heard on Tales From The Wicked but retains some of the more progressive guitar playing from Vile. Unfortunately, however, this track in my opinion has the shakiest vocal performance out of all of Valkyrie A.D.'s discography. It's an ambitious work but I'd rather listen to the previous material if I'm being honest. There are decent moments on this track, but the regression in production really takes away a lot from the track's instrumentation which is honestly pretty strong. I think redoing/remixing the production on the instruments and doing a better vocal take would improve this track tenfold.
Overall, Valkyrie A.D. has released some solid material, but I think they are still in their early stages. Vile was a promising step forward but they still, in my opinion, are held back a bit by some of the usual trappings of a passion/solo project in terms of needing some outside opinion. When working by yourself it's easy to get caught up in the work and not see your own shortcomings and with Valkyrie A.D. this sometimes comes in the form of songs that are a little too long, vocal performances that need another take, etc etc. At the end of the day, for a solo project, Valkyrie A.D. puts forth some decent Melodic Death Metal, and you can tell this is a passion project from someone who loves to jam out on their guitar, because it's the best part of the project's discography. If you like Melodic Death Metal I suggest you take a listen to Valkyrie A.D.'s music, I'll leave a link below to their Bandcamp page. I'd like to take this chance to thank Corey for reaching out to me, its been a pleasure to listen through your music.
I'd like to also remind anyone reading this that you too can reach out and suggest an artist/label for me to feature in the future (doesn't have to be your band/label either!).