VALHALL — Moonstoned (review)

VALHALL — Moonstoned album cover Album · 1995 · Doom Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"Moonstoned" is the debut full-length studio album by Norwegian doom metal act Valhall. The album was released through Head Not Found in February 1995. Valhall formed in 1987 and originally featured Gylve Nagell (aka Fenriz from Darkthrone) on drums on their first two demos (and on some tracks on their third demo). Nagell is however not part of the lineup on "Moonstoned" and actually hadn´t been involved with Valhall since 1990. Valhall started out playing a hybrid death, black, thrash, doom metal style but when they released their third demo "Trauma" in April 1990, they played a more pure death-doom metal style.

On "Moonstoned" none of the band´s extreme metal past is heard though, and the listener is instead treated to a more traditional doom metal style with a clean vocalist in front. It´s actually still Ronny Sorkness singing, who has been Valhall´s lead vocalist since day one, so he has just left the extreme metal snarling vocals behind and opted for a more "normal" vocal style. Stylistically the music on "Moonstoned" is similar to what an artist like Trouble did in the late 80s/early 90s, so there´s the occasional stoner doom metal touch to the band´s heavy doom metal style (Black Sabbath is of course also an influence).

Valhall are a well playing band but while Sorkness is a decent vocalist who gets the job done, he doesn´t have a particularliy distinct sounding voice and the vocals are a weak link of the album. The sound production is another...it simply sounds thin and lacks the heavy organic bottom end which this type of music is so dependent on. The songwriting is actually pretty decent and fairly memorable, but with the other issues "Moonstoned" isn´t a perfect release by any means. A 3 star (60%) rating is still warranted though.
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