Beats and yelling: Valadier

Carmina Belli Apocalypsis
Out 28^th October on Black Mass Prayers

Armed with a dark medievalist paint job, a murky atmospheric gloom, and a dynamic compositional package, this pleasing Italian oddity attempts a synthesis between early Satyricon and the suffocating malevolence of Demoncy. At times the results are about as unfocused as one might expect. Valadier have a tendency to lean on folk interludes which – whilst serviceable in themselves – feel incongruous next to the impressive weight of the metallic material. But the dominant impression is one of a charming well of creativity, intelligence, and unadulterated joy.

Valadier are not short on oppressive, meditative riffs, boasting a quality one would traditionally refer to as “heavy” if the term means anything anymore. A muddy bass heavy guitar tone bolsters simple but effective throughlines of grinding black metal, setting the stage for brutalism and barbarism that nevertheless makes room for alcoves of expressive and nuanced narrative threads. Onto this template are placed proto-symphonic supplements that grant the music a sense of historicism. The music feels archaic, an after-echo of a distant past. Despite the somewhat limited mix (and undisguised programmed drums), ‘Carmina Belli Apocalypsis’ approaches the listener as a genuine artefact of its subject matter as opposed to the usual reverential battle re-enactment cosplay that passes for medievalist black metal these days.

The album overcomes its intermittently clunky pacing, developing individual themes and ideas to impressively dramatic conclusions. Where some black metal bands who rely on programmed drums attempt to disguise the fact, Valadier lean into rhythmic binaries, offering either basic back beats or fast paced blasting, allowing the music to weave organic flesh around this rigid, artificial backbone. One is conscious of the compensation and trade-offs emerging from this necessity, but as with a lot of great black metal, the drums serve their purpose in simply being there without creating a distraction. Valadier are more than capable of working within these limitations to build worlds within worlds.

In one sense this mimics the random fits and starts of medieval hand-to-hand combat. Periods of tedium or stasis unceremoniously interrupted by bouts of extreme violence and rampant activity. Sudden interruptions, changes in emotive emphasis, and accents flowering into deviations that wrest the momentum and flow of a piece, all give life to a distinctive character over the course of the album, and imbue an otherwise tentative template with endless intrigue.

Fans of the darker, grittier end of black metal may find the folk flourishes detrimental. The truth is the bulk of the material on ‘Carmina Belli Apocalypsis’ is weighty, bombastic, heavy black metal loyal to the early traditions of the genre. The folk flourishes serve their purpose well, but at times feel contrived, thrown in to remind the listener of the thematic material as opposed to furthering the musical narrative in any way. But taken as isolated vignettes and interludes separate from the music they serve a purpose.

All is spacious enough to allow the listener to plug the gaps with their imagination. Valadier take the less-is-more approach to world building through composition, painting a scene rich enough to draw us in without beating us over the head with surplus content, or attempting to hold the listener’s hand through an overcooked conceptual vision. Arrangements are precise and detailed, showcasing only those elements that are absolutely necessary to draw us in.

A curiosity of “actually existing” good medievalist black metal infused with folk flourishes, relying on its own ability to compose and communicate its ideas without leaning on the shared symbology of pure pastiche to draw in an audience.