Formed in Mammoth Lake, California in 1999, Black/Death Metal band VALDUR present their seventh full-length album on Bloody Mountain Records. The album has six songs, and "Hailing Molten Meteors" is first. Out of the gate, the treble sound is pushed high, and the bass sound is grittier, but not beefy. In this regard, it sounds like traditional FWOBM. There are also Death elements mixed in, especially in the guttural vocals and overall lack of much melody. The two genres can coexist frequently. "Mangled and Rotting" is exactly that in the form of music. It has a chaotic sound where it takes you a bit to get your bearings, and all of the animal screams in the background contribute to this. So far, the band has one thing down…a sound that plows through all barriers with the unbridled speed of hatred.  

The title track is really the first song where you get to catch your breath a bit….at least at first. What follows however barely registers as music, and I mean that in the best way possible. They have obliterated all melodies and just go for the filthiest sound one can imagine. "Doomed Pt. II" features torturous sounds, and I am reminded of the music that was playing while people were being tortured and killed in the movie Hostel. "Drinking from the Chalice of Banishment" is another filthy and deadly offering. The vocals are about as guttural as anything that you have heard this year, and the song is again nearly devoid of melody. "Stars of Belial" is the final offering. It begins with white noise, and electronica, that is harrowing, and overgrown, rolling into another fast and aggressive sound. It morphs into a kind of beast that you would not want to face in the night.

This was an absolutely frightening, and deadly album. Their conglomeration of Death and Black metal combined into something so black and so pure, it's evil personified. Sometimes, we all need an album like this to remind us that some things aren't salvageable, aren't savable, and are as empty as the void itself.