When I first came across Lord Valtgryftåke's EP "Hordes of the Blackwinds" on Youtube, just the first four tracks had been uploaded but now the full EP of nine tracks has been uploaded there by Forbidden Files Records. Originally Lord Valtgryftåke was the solo raw BM project of Lord Valtgryftåke (Carlos Andres Eckhardt to his family and friends), releasing a demo and an album back in 2022 in this form, but two years later with this EP the project has been expanded to a duo with Solaris Lupus (from Swiss raw BM act Aspaarn) on vocals.
To judge from the EP, these two new partners in crime traffic in a melodic raw blackened death style, harking back to the classic 1990s era of second-wave black metal, with constant grinding noise guitars, steady and tight drumming, and above all SL's own gravelly, snarling vocals. The atmosphere is hellish, made more so when squalling solo lead guitar scrabbles and gibbers hysterically in the far background. Second track "Sabbatic Cauldron of Hate" – the opening track is a short ambient instrumental taster – sets the template for the rest of the album to follow with tightly constructed songs emphasising repeating riffs and accompanying music of a nauseous nature dominated by SL's icily croaking vocals. Layers of droning synth wash in follow-up song "Destroy the Morbid Bastard" gives an even more unhealthy impression of a sound universe where corruption and decay are prevalent. As on the first song, the circular, repetitive nature of the music helps reinforce the intense rottenness and venom of the environment in which Lord Valtgryftåke reigns supreme.
Most songs, with the exception of "Destroy the Morbid Bastard" (at about 5+ minutes) and a couple of others "Sabbatic Cauldron of Hate" (track 2) and the title track (track 6), are short and straightforward with a minimal instrumental set-up of snaking noisy grind guitars, a suffocating backdrop of droning synth decadence and crisp drumming that sets the pace and drives the music forward with juddering bursts of blast-beat thunder and cymbal shower. Apart from perhaps three or four (or maybe five) tracks where there is prolonged guitar feedback at the start or a solo lead guitar trying to escape this particular prison, the music doesn't stray far from laying down a series of riffs and rhythms over which SL growls and luxuriates in his special brand of corruption and evil. Nearly all songs end promptly, without any need for further embellishment, once SL is done delivering his message. Only the opening and closing tracks ("Necrologies of Vampirism" and "As the Shadows and Thornfields" respectively), both completely ambient instrumentals, and the latter having a cinematic soundtrack quality in its use of samples, hint that the Lord Valtgryftåke duo might be interested in performing anything more than melodic raw black / death minimalism with epic orchestral synth drone shower backgrounds portraying a world steeped in depraved evil.
What will stay with most listeners after the EP ends is the experience of being in a dimension of total evil and demonic hate, where the very atmosphere itself is malice and is filled with the desire to destroy or infect others with evil. The music feels oppressive and suffocating, with a raw edge of savagery. At the same time the production is just clear enough for the vocals to retain an icy echo suggestive of their essentially demonic nature.
At this point in time in Lord Valtgryftåke's evolution, this minimally styled black / death EP might be a modest start but where the duo will go next, this time with SL's vision of a humanity that is basically savage and violent beneath a fake civilised veneer, may be something interesting to watch out for.
Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvNYeuKbElw
