Magic and Wyrmfire

The first thing which crossed my mind after less than one minute when I listened to this band was the resemblance with Summoning. In fact, Valar is a one-man band and when you know how hard it is to play all the instruments and to put them all together so that there is a cohesion, you can only admire the effort of such musicians...on the condition that it really sounds nice. Valar manages to play the instruments so that the orchestration and the overall impression is rather fine. The music is quite well executed and this aforementioned cohesion between all the instruments is obviously present on this album. It's probably the main good point with some of the melodies and atmospheres which are captivating.

However, the compositions themselves are very poor and reveal a clear lack of inspiration. There are not more than 2 or 3 extremely easy and mainly plain melodies in each song and while it might not be a problem for some bands who manage to put the listener in a kind of trance, it's definitely not the case here. After two songs which are all composed following the same pattern, you seriously start to get bored and this impression improves throughout the album. Despite all these drawbacks and flaws, this album has its moments. The second and the eighth tracks are probably the bests and those who appreciate Summoning will surely like at least partially this release. The last two tracks unfortunately tend to increase the bad side of this band. The ninth track is techno oriented and will badly surprise most of the listeners, unless they are fond of this type of music, which is typically not compatible to metal. The last song is a poor outro played on a keyboard. It emphasizes the overall very poor level of Valar's music. Honestly speaking, anyone who played two months a keyboard would be able to do the same. It's uninspired, casual, very easy and just useless.

To conclude, I prefer the original to the copy, especially when the copy is far from the level of the original. It's true that Summoning is not the most technical band on earth, that most of their songs are quite easy, but they were not just pioneers of a new genre, they also composed very enchanted tracks, full of medieval and fantastic atmospheres and this is what matters the most. Valar is mostly deprived of these qualities and this is the main reason why this album is not essential in anyone's collection.

It is curious how different people, with nothing in common but the same source of inspiration, can end up with similar creations, only different in interpretation.

The first name you’ll think of when listening to this album is Summoning. The basis is indeed common: programmed drums, evoking medieval percussions, ambient parts, centered around the keyboards and lyrics from or inspired by Tolkien. The “drumming” consists of synthesised samples of the usual drum set along with several folk percussion instruments like the tambourine. Its composition is close to mid-paste black/folk metal patterns, relying mostly on slow drum patterns or timpani rolls with limited variation to them, although faster, double pedal ridden parts with snare hits do appear in the songs Wanderlust, Storm Over Krynn and Tale of the King Under the Mountain. Vocals also bear the mark of the famous austrians. Their presence is set by the use of reverb effects rather than raising the volume up, with other effects being used as well, so the voice gets a more solemn tone to it than if there were only the standard human grunts. The few spoken passages also bring out that impression by means of a clearly articulated baritone voice.

The synths and keyboards are the prominent part in this album, spanning a wide range of timbres used, starting with organ, through harpsichord and piano and also flutes or bells. The keyboards are fundamental because their interplay create the musical lines you can recognize as riffs; they pose as the "spine" in this album, since they are those who were given the leading lines with contributions both rhythmic and melodic. All the subtleties of this album lie in the arrangements of various keyboard parts around the basic structure of the other instruments. On the contrary, the guitars are undermixed and may seem evicted for the untrained ear, yet their contribution still remains important to the general sound. They are the only saturated instruments (unless you consider the voice as an instrument) and therefore bring the thickness and aggression that would otherwise be lacking. The guitar work consists of either simple chords or continuous notes that support the global musical structure, and is basically playing the role usually reserved for the bass guitar, since the leading role of the guitars was overtaken by keyboards on this release.

Nargath’s quality songwriting skills can be evaluated at best in the three instrumental tracks of this album, which contain only keyboards and have a very emotional feel to them. “Crown of Dirmanesti” is an ingenious insertion of a dark, mournful passage right in the middle of a crystal spakling melody in quite a surprising way. “Xar-Tsaroth” paints the opposite picture, as it introduces menace with strong organ melodies yet ending with a soft flute. “At the Silent Shores” demonstrates great talent on piano and reminds the emotional work of Richard Brunelle on “Desolate Ways”.

Now, this would be the perfect place to come up with a warning: "Rivendell 2001" is a techno track with some kind of clean vocals and elven harps in it, that sounds more like a wargame track than anything else. It breaks the auditive cohesion and changes the ambience in a negative way, especially since it''s placed before the emotional piano solo that concludes the album. It is a nice experiment with an awful result, something you''d rather skip on a permanent basis.

The overall impression made by this full-length is a nostalgic one, full of glorious, majestic and dark moments. It evokes an image of a creature telling his descendants tales of past lore, evoking courageous campaigns, led against any form of power. The mysterious landscapes it all happened in could also be easily pictured, as they''re suggested in the booklet''s artwork. Luckily, this album characterizes itself more by its differences rather than similarities to other known releases. That being said, if you''re allergic to MIDI sounds you might want to pass along, otherwise this work will offer you a journey to a part of middle earth no film director from New-Zealand or an austrian travelling company would dare to take you.

And if these songs don''t make you to image anything, it''s time to read some fantasy novels.