Artist: Valdivian Tower
Country: Chile
Label: Ars Maligne / Inferna Profundus Records
Formats: CD / LP
Year: 2024
Everyone remotely following the (underground) Black Metal scene or regularly read our pages knows that Lord Valtgryftåke is one of the most prolific Black Metal musicians around, spawning a handful of albums each year through his many bands and projects. At this tail end of 2024 there’s another good amount of music to dive into, besides a new Wampyric Rites album and no less than three new Mánþiel releases there’s also the second album of Valdivian Tower – one of Lord Valtgryftåke’s many solo-projects.
The thing with most of his work is that it is built upon the very same musical fundamentals. For himself, as a musician, I think it makes all perfect sense and he knows exactly what he’s doing. But for us, the audience, it makes a lot less sense to have so many different bands and projects that more or less all sound the same – or at least the average listener will have a hard time keeping them apart.
The positive side of the rather limited and one-dimensional way of making music of this Chilean musician is that if you happen to like his style, you can just follow him in whatever he’s doing. He will never surprise you, but in the case you are into this sort of Raw-ish yet atmospheric Black Metal, you won’t be let down either.
‘Die Schattenfestung’ is the follow-up of the project’s ‘Die Valdivianische Schatten’-debut album that was released on cassette tape only by Lord Valtgryftåke’s own (now defunct) Mahamvantara Arts Records and apart from very limitedly distributed demos and a contribution to a compilation tape, this new album perhaps is the first proper introduction to the band to many. As said, those will not be knocked off their feet by this album, but it is by no means a bad album – it is just rather generic and it just flows by without any real highlights (nor nadirs, admittedly) or anything really memorable.
Compared to the majority of Lord Valtgryftåke’s other work the only aspect of Valdivian Tower that sets it remotely apart are the strumming intermezzo’s that gives the music a slight resemblance to the earlier works of a band like Xasthur for instance. As stated before in this review, and a good amount of others reviews on Lord Valtgryftåke’s work, the necessity of giving every new idea a new band or project eludes me. I keep repeating my stance in this matter: focus on two or three projects and put all your love and passion into them, limit the output to only the very best you have, then the impact will be many times greater.
