VALLENFYRE — A Fragile King (review)

Album · 2011 · Death Metal

4/5 · 2016-10-19
UMUR

"A Fragile King" is the debut full-length studio album by UK death metal act Vallenfyre. The album was released through Century Media Records in October 2011. "A Fragile King" may be a debut album, but the lineup features several quite prolific names. Among others lead vocalist/guitarist Gregor Mackintosh (Paradise Lost), guitarist Hamish Glencross (My Dying Bride) and drummer Adrian Erlandsson (Paradise Lost, At the Gates, The Haunted, Cradle of Filth...etc.)...

...and experience sometimes can´t be matched by anything else. Be it youthful energy, hunger for success or whatever else you can think of. Vallenfyre deliver their performances with great conviction and passion, but also with an attention to compositional detail and album flow that only seasoned veterans are usually able to muster.

The music on "A Fragile King" is old school death metal. There are references to early doom/death period Paradise Lost (the debut album) on tracks like "All Will Suffer" and "Seeds" (and a couple of melodic lead guitar themes, that sound unmistakably like Paradise Lost), but there are an equal amount of references to the old school Swedish, Stockholm based death metal scene and especially early Dismember comes to mind. The guitar tone in particular reeks of the early 90s productions from the now legendary Sunlight Studio.

The material on "A Fragile King" are generally well written and most tracks are memorable. There are a couple of not so remarkable tracks on the album too, but they are outnumbered by the great ones. The album opens on a particularly strong note with the opening trio of tracks: "All Will Suffer", "Desecration", and "Ravenous Whore", which each represent the three dominant death metal styles on the album. As mentioned above "All Will Suffer" is a brutal doom/death metal track, while "Desecration" picks up the pace a bit to a mid-paced to fast-paced groove and incorporate quite a few catchy hooks, and "Ravenous Whore" speeds things up even more incorporating blast beats and a lot of aggression. As a result "A Fragile King" is within the boundaries of it´s genre, a relatively varied release.

While the band are very well playing, and as the seasoned veterans they are, deliver their music with seamless ease, it´s lead vocalist Gregor Mackintosh I need to give a special mention. Who would have known that he could deliver such a convincing and grim growling vocal performance? The man is a natural talent and almost reach the heights of his Paradise Lost bandmate Nick Holmes in the latter´s growling heyday. And that is praise if I ever heard praise considering in how high regard I hold Nick Holmes as a growling vocalist.

So does the world really need yet another old school death metal album? Yes I say! If it´s as well played, well thought out (yet naturally flowing), well produced, and passionate as this one is, there is definitely room for one more old school death metal release. "A Fragile King" is highly recommendable to fans of the genre and a 4 star (80%) rating is well deserved.