Review Summary: Changed it up from 3 to 4 after many listens.
It’s fascinating how black metal changes according to the place where it’s band members hail from.
Such is Scottish one man project Saor with it’s heritage ridden, mournful but rich soundscape. Such is Northern American Ash Borer with it’s rocky, inaccessible portrayal of Cascadia mountain range.
Such is playful and proud banjo driven Panopticon from the state of finger licking good chicken - Kentucky.
Indonesian Vallendusk quartet choose the same path, spicing up black metal with nostalgic feelings toward nature that surrounds them on this beautiful island. This is not mournful, grim or frostbitten, oh ever so cold black metal.
Melodies are optimistic, carefree, perfect for a sunny day or a stroll along the coastline during a warm summer night.
There is something proud, motherland loving in their riffs. Slightly mysterious.
If a band of medieval bards were given electric guitars and double base with triggers it would not surprise me that their end product would be the vivid sound of Vallendusk.
All of this could have been said for Vallendusk’s debut Black Clouds Gathering. And those are mostly words of praise. Cheerfulness in their approach bring freshness to (more often than not) a stale genre of extreme music. Homeward Path brings refinement in form of experimentation that is unfortunately not consistent and executed well enough to advance their sound to new levels.
It kinda...backfires.
Vocals are very well done classic BM screams and present most of the time, dimming the musicianship of other members making them somewhat over plentiful.
Singing didn’t become stale on the last album because it was not used all the time on all the songs. Dude’s performance if solid, but nothing to write home about and I’m intrigued about the two lines line of clean singing on the beginning of the second and the end of the last song.
They work well on the last one and remind me of Strangler’s evergreen Golden Brown that sure raised an eyebrow. I really can’t tell why they didn’t use more of it because it give the album diversity it so desperately longs for.
Overall production is puncher and the drums have a stronger kick then on it’s predecessor but some of the cohesion a good instrumental blend (retraining clarity - that would be the ideal sound) is lost due to this. I find this kind of postprocessing more suited for technical death metal and not atmosferic/folk black. The drummer has a lot to desire. It get’s tiresome and blast beats lose their effect if they are used with this little variation. Riffs are joyful and jolly as you would expect, but very few of them are memorable the the point of whistling.
My humble opinion is that our indonesian friends efforts would worked out if this release was packed in tighter EP than a overlong and even tedious LP.
There are also the new keyboards. And my oh my they sure are...new.
I really can’t put my finger on them. The sound synthesizer reminds me of something you might hear in old peoples home during bingo nights, or what a gypsy plays trying to make it’s monkey dance on a country fare. It’s kinda refreshing but awkward at the same time. There would be nothing wrong with acoustic guitar completely replaced the synth.
There are some more dynamic, somewhat technical passages showing that members have further mastered operating their instruments. Sometime they seem to be trying really hard, but melodies and the build up don’t lead to the orgasmic catharsis. It stops being great when you find out that songs are not really going anywhere and that release is really underwhelming. More slow passages would blend nicely for contrast’s sake.
The only reason I’m being harsh on this piece of music is because they put the bar so high with freshness Black Clouds Gathering shined with.
Catchier riffs, a normal synth (or no synth at all) and bolder clean vocals (really well done on the few places they appear) would made this an easy 4.5/5
