Artist: VALLENFYRE
Album: A FRAGILE KING LTD. EDIT. (DIGI)

Release date: 2011
Media type: CD

There have been a spate of so-called "super groups" emerging from the woodwork recently, flaunting their pasts as a means of attracting attention. Vallenfyre are a brand new British force comprised of people from other bands, but these connections hold no significance or influence over the music of Vallenfyre, or "strong fire" as is in old English.

Vallenfyre is a grimey and powerful embodiment of grief. The bass guitar reigns in this monumentally crushing, Celtic Frost-esque accumulation of doomy death metal. Inspired musically by the earliest forms of extreme metal and conceptually by the loss of Gregor Mackintosh's father, Vallenfyre is the dark culmination of a bereaving man's emotions.

Stretching from doom to death metal, A Fragile King doesn't allow itself to become too bogged down or over-indulgent. This is a wonderfully morbid combination of soul shattering earthly tones, top quality vintage-style death metal, and emotion. From the darkest moment of "Seeds" to the blood-pumping march of songs like "Ravenous Whore" and "Humanity Wept" with Gregor's grim death growls, A Fragile King is both a deeply touching journey and a monster of a death metal album.

Vallenfyre may be a somber and depressing outlet to one of life's harshest sorrows, but this embodiment of distress is bound to be one of the year's most impressive and harrowing works. A Fragile King is as powerful as they come, both compellingly and musically.

TRACKLIST:

01. All Will Suffer
02. Desecration
03. Ravenous Whore
04. Cathedrals Of Dread
05. As The World Collapses
06. A Thousand Martyrs
07. Seeds
08. Humanity Wept
09. My Black Siberia
10. The Divine Have Fled
11. The Grim Irony
12. Majesty Dethroned [limited edition bonus]

LINE-UP:

Gregor Mackintosh (Paradise Lost) (Vocals and Lead Guitar)
Hamish Glencross (My Dying Bride)(Rhythm and Lead Guitars)
Mully(Rhythm Guitars)
Scoot (Doom, Extinction of Mankind)(Bass)
Adrian Erlandsson (At The Gates, Paradise Lost)(Drums)