Valhalla

VALHALLA was founded by guitarist Dmitry and drummer Veschezlav in early 1996. The first songs of this band were made in the vein of not fast, guitar-based black-like magic metal. The ideological side was (is and forever will be) presented as extreme antireligiousness. The second guitarist Volgast and bassist Nick join the band a bit later in 1996; Schur, the current vocalist of VALHALLA joined the band in 1996 also. During the autumn, winter and spring these musicians create their songs and their first live-session was played at 31.05.97. At early september of 1997 Satt, the keyboardist of gothic/eherial duo MOONLIGHT was recruited to the combo. From that day on VALHALLA follows the way of athmospheric melodic metal. October 1997 bassist Nick left the band because of his personal and ideological misunderstandings. New bass-player, Max, was invited without any delay and VALHALLA began to rehearse its new compositions. Some live-sessions later musicians decided to record some of new songs. The first album, called «The Wolfish Nocturne» was recorded at the late March of 1998. It became THE Manifesto Of Forest Magic Metal for VALHALLA. Every effort to describe VALHALLA’s music as Black Metal isn’t accepted by musicians themselves - this is not Black but Forest metal, of course.
After the studio session the activity of band was frozen because of numerous musical discords in opinions of musicians. During this period enough of new songs were written, but their realisation sheives because of disagreements. At this time keyboardist, drummer, vocalist and guitarist Dmitry form a trance-hypnotic project VELEENTOR. Soon after this the rumours of VALHALLA’s splitting were appeared. Veschezlav besides VALHALLA and VELEENTOR was asked to play drums for «Control Shot Or Halls Of The Red» of other Ural band - THY REPENTANCE. In addition he’s busy with drum-kit in KALI-YUGA band. As the session drummer he helps to Black Metal-project NUCLEAR WINTER and plays drums in his own combo - VARHORN.
Nevertheless, «The Wolfish Nocturne» was mixed and released at spring of 1999. VALHALLA started its rehearsals again and the second album was recorded at June of 1999. It’s released at late autumn of the same year under the name «Winterbastard». Today VALHALLA consists of : Schur - voice; Zlav - drums; Volgast - guitar; Heroine - guitar; Mor Dagnir (also in VARHORN)- bass; Satt - keyboards. Some of them form their own Black Ambient project VELEHENTOR and besides of that Satt creates the music for his noise/ambient-project CLOSING THE ETERNITY). «Winterbastard» sounds much more melodically and symphonically.
Neither Satanism nor paganism are ideological pillars of band’s creative work. In spite of this, the extremal antireligiousness remains the main idea of VALHALLA’s existence.
At the late December of 1999 Mikko Oksanen, owner of Northern Sound Records (Finland) report to band that he would wish to issue «Winterbastard» as CD/LP.
At January of 2000 vocalist Schur was fired off the band because of his god-may-care attitude towards VALHALLA’s activities. It was decided not to search for a new singer and keyboardist Satt shoulders the responsibility for lyrics and vocals. The release of «Winterbastard» consists of 666 hand-numbered CDs, 200 LPs and 1000 MCs. LP edition will have original artwork and 1 bonus-track. VALHALLA recorded 4 tracks in addition to promo-version (6 tracks) of «Winterbastard»: three of four new tracks are added to «Winterbastard» CD-edition (total 9 tracks). LP-version to be released in the beginning of 2002 and will contain all 10 tracks. MC-edition contains authentic artwork and consists of 9 tracks from CD. It is released by russian Blacksmith Productions.
First album of VALHALLA got much of impressive feedbacks in spite of mediocre sound-quality. CD-version was sold out in 3 months.
Brand new stuff of VALHALLA is quite different from «Winterbastard». The demo-tape «Opening The Way» with several new songs is ready to be recorded in winter 2001-2002. Music is much harder, ruthless and lyrics is more poetic and cynical.