Vehemency I’m not particularly fond of the current Swedish black metal trend - so-called orthodox black metal recorded in the famous Necromorbus studio to sound as sterile as possible - but I must admit that Valkyrja’s second album, Contamination, sounds rather good. I haven’t heard the band’s previous album, but at least this albums follows the footsteps of other Swedish bands, namely Watain and Ondskapt, and succeeds well enough.

If you hear a sample of this album, I bet you would think it’s a Watain song. From the ultimately similar singer to the overall compositional style, everything is very close to the aforementioned band. Tempos change from fast (”Oceans to Dust”) to mid-paced material such as ”Ambience of the Dead”. The music is rather technical and there’s some time signatures that aren’t really common in black metal. Luckily it’s not exaggerated so that Contamination flows nicely and doesn’t turn into a total show-off of technical abilities.

Recorded in Necromorbus, I’m always a bit afraid of how the result will sound, but Contamination isn’t overly polished. The sound is professional and clear but not overly sterile. Thus I’m able to enjoy the album from the intro to the end, although I do think that Contamination would do better if it excluded at least one song. Going through 60 minutes of this music can be a numbing experience.

I certainly wouldn’t call Contamination an essential album, but for its style it’s an enjoyable piece that, however, will most likely to be forgotten in a few years. The trend is going strong right now but I don’t see a long lifespan for it. Nonetheless, Valkyrja is among the best ones in this certain style and I could expect even better material from them in the future, as long as they don’t keep following too much their idols from now on.