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Finland's Valravn has announced 8 September as the release date for its sophomore album, The Awakening, which will come out via Primitive Reaction on CD and vinyl formats. Valravn has also revealed the first (album's last) track, "Charge Of The Last Cavalry", which awaits you in the player below.
Like a bolt from the blue, Valravn arrived fully formed with its first album, 2020's Prey. Evincing a mastery beyond its short time as a band, Prey, no doubt, displayed characteristics of Finland's now-world-renown black metal sound - cryogenic melody, raw 'n' rugged execution, an unapologetic assertion of traditionalism - but, in more telling aspects, Valravn asserted its identity counter to this prevailing paradigm: From the tranquil, tellingly autumnal acoustic opening and across comparable textures, the album burned with the intensity of a November coming fire.
Now, as the summer heat continues to blaze after the revelry of midsummer, Valravn returns with a second full-length, The Awakening. Tellingly titled, The Awakening displays yet more sides to this still-unfolding entity. To be sure, Valravn's poise and power are firmly accounted for here - you can still feel every note, so vital, virile, and vivid. Sharp and yet never sterile, thanks to a production that's on the right side of polished, there's an acute balance of contrasts across The Awakening's 44-minute runtime; each of the album's eight songs features some twist of melancholy and militancy, of bursting colour and bristling monochromatism, of stoic resignation and steadfast determination, of man-on-the-mountain spaciousness and stuck-in-the-catacombs claustrophobia. Concluding with the literally breathtaking "Charge Of The Last Cavalry", The Awakening consolidates all the strengths of its predecessor and indeed leads Valravn into a new charge for glory. Link
The Awakening tracklist:
1. The Black Flame
2. Kehän Murtama
3. Liekki Tiemme Valaisee
4. The Great Deceit
5. The Insolent
6. Sisyphean Torment
A Symphony of Horror
8. Charge of the Last Cavalry
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