Ladies and gentlemen it's with great pleasure that I present to you the new masterpiece of the Greek pagan goddess Hildr Valkyrie, entitled "Shield Brothers of Valhalla". Here is the metaphorical "answer" of the Southern lands to the well known Northern bands musical legacy or better yet described, our lady's personal view on this kind of music. I guess that Hildr really excells because her body and soul belongs to this kind of music and she really believes and loves what she does. Hildr is quite experienced with this music genre and has appeared on various bands albums, including the world famous Folkearth among others. Concerning now "Shield Brothers of Valhalla" , I only have to say that' s it is an album that deserves a place in your viking folk metal collection. The tracks are really excellent - full of epic melodies and a great pagan feel, with the lyrics mostly dedicated to mother earth and a lot of great Summoning-like guitar riffs here and there that really carry the songs and create an alltogether impressive atmosphere .Of course the main influence of the band remains Falkenbach and Bathory, check also the covers to those bands . Hildr's vocals are as daring and beautiful as her prescence and offer much greater depth and lyricism to the compositions, than if for instance they were instumental tunes, as they bond quite nicely with the melodies and the atmosphere of the album. A higly recommended album.
Author: DRMJIM.
Average: 8/10
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Review No 02 at http://deadshop.info/
HILDR VALKYRIE “Shield Brothers Of Valhalla” 2008 CD | Stygian Crypt Productions H. Valkyrie – member of well known FOLKEARTH, decided to create own project (back in 2003) in aim to do something different of usual metal scene, and as result we have new good stuff into Viking style. Here isn’t standard Viking metal, because here aren’t tons of guitar riffs and chaotic drumming, he-he, but here are just folkloric melodies with ambient touches. Of course here are guitar parts (both acoustic and electro), but here they aren’t playing main role in the music. Music is based on mid tempos, with female vocals (H. Valkyrie) and good ancient atmosphere. I’d like to admit here aren’t any right original things, I can’t remember some names right now, but I’ve heard bands with plays in such style exactly. Nevertheless HV is really interesting, professional and memorable in it’s sense, and this is the main thing that here’s good stuff, isn’t it? As for atmosphere, so here’s good one, it’s really filled with all necessary moods to imagine those ancient times here was sung about. The only bad thing is HV don’t have real drummer, yes, here’s drum-machine just… Maybe it’s question of time just… Such kind of music is popular and I think HV have lots of fans already. And if you are into not brutal Viking metal and ambient – HV is for you! All in all here are intro, 6 long compositions, outro and two good covers of FALKENBACH with BATHORY.
Author: Unknown
Averange: 4/5
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Review 03 at Femme Metal Webzine (femmemetalwebzine.net)
http://femmemetalwebzine.net/eerie-sounds-reviews-hildr-valkyrie-shield-br
Label : Stygian Crypt Productions
Review by Luisa Mercier
After the self-produced debut "Deceitful Fate", Hildr Valkyrie releases for Stygian Crypt her second record "Shield Brothers of Valhalla". The album is made up of ten folk tracks: their main features are Hildr's female vocals and the synth which is heavily used in order to create a dreamy and at the same time epic atmosphere. The aim of the record is to discover once again our roots, traditions and celebrate Nordic mythology, as she already did with her other two bands Folkearth and Folkodia. The sound throughout the album is quite omogenous since the song are all keyboard-synth based with Hildr vocalising through them. In some songs there are not real lyrics, but this creates a quite alienating mood, for example in "All Mighty Gods". I have to say that the metal side is not very prominent, but I guess it was a choice of Hildr. In the end you will find two cover songs, the first is Falchenbach's "Havamal", the second is Bathory's "Ring of Gold", both renditions are quite good and acoustic. I would recommend this album to folk and folk-metal lovers!
Rating - 70/100
