Review: Valfreya “Dawn of Reckoning”

Here is a very ambitious symphonic black/folk metal album, with many ideas that may or may not work, sometimes it’s not easy to get into, but it’s at least rather impressive.

The album starts with the title track, a grandiose, epic symphonic intro that guarantees the album will be just as over-the-top. That track serves as an intro to both the album and the first track, “The Rise”. The fact that the song begins immediately with a scream and a riff feels strange, just like the song’s vocals in general: they’re a sort of raspy growl, and occasional spoken words or yelling, for lyrics like “Those you took from, those you abused from”. They can sound a little irritating at times, and that’s why I consider the album difficult to get into, but you’re definitely not going to mistake them for anyone else. Despite my criticism of the vocals, I definitely like the song’s wild riffs and drums, and lyrics about the oppressed finally rising up against their tormentor.

We get more vocal strangeness in “The Fall”, where the singer does everything: an evil laugh, raspy growls, tormented speak-singing, loud singing with a choir and as a soloist, on a rather catchy chorus with a wild and fast riff. Or “Warcry”, where she does both styles of war cries: with a growl and with a sort of howling singing. But where the song gets really interesting is the wild and fast violin playing, with a sort of Celtic influence. The album was described as using Celtic folk metal influence, and they do some very interesting things in the amazingly energetic violin and keyboards intro of “The Fate”, accompanied by a fast riff that seems to twirl around in a wild frenzy. Something about the melody manages to stick in your mind like an old folk song that has survived for centuries.

However, the symphonic black metal sound is still very much here, and creates some really interesting musical soundscapes, like the sinister cello intro, followed by heavy riffs of “Equilibrium”, one of the album’s few songs mostly sung in French. This is also where Corinne Cardinal’s vocals work a little better for me, with her snarly, raspy snake-like growls and creepy singing and recitations. The guitar solo is pretty cool too.

The guitar playing is pretty good in general, but the album tends to fall back on similar, fairly generic riffs, as well as similar vocal lines. For example, “The Fallen Kings” sounds like complete album filler, with the only thing I like being the haunting background vocals. But they’re not as good as the eerie lyrical vocalizations and spoken word part on “Reus Es”, where they’re once again the only interesting thing on the song. I like the clean vocals and the catchiness of “A New Era”, but I can’t really name anything really special about that song. Like many others, the album gets a little weaker on its second half, which is a shame because although the first minutes can feel a little strange, it starts off pretty good all things considered, and it gets really good in the middle. At least it ends with a pretty good song like “Reus Es”.

Dawn of Reckoning was one of those albums I’m not sure what to think about, one that’s not easy to review. It’s not the greatest album you’ll ever hear. I think it has some good songs, along with not so good ones. While I didn’t love it, and I think there are many artists doing the same thing but better, I think this band has a lot of personality, and some songwriting skills. I guess it’s not the kind of album that you love immediately but one that grows on you.

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