Tag: Valdrin

Valdrin’s début release Beyond the Forest is an atmospheric Black Metal delight with none of the pomp and plenty of bite and an all-round highly enjoyable listen. Vocalist/guitarist Carter Hicks provided some background information to this compelling album…

For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!

My name is Carter and I play guitar and do vocals in a black/death metal band called Valdrin.

Give us a bit of history to Valdrin

Valdrin was formed in 2010 and spent the years of 2011 to 2012 recording the debut album Beyond The Forest. The line-up during the recording was Carter Hicks: Guitar/vocals, Avik Subedi: Guitar, James Lewis: Bass. We released the album on bandcamp in February 2013 and eventually on a digipack cd format limited to 100 copies. Ryan Maurmeier joined on drums in early 2013 and Avik left the band in the summer of 2013. In early 2014 we signed to Blast Head Records and they released Beyond The Forest on CD. Since then we’ve played out as much as possible to spread our message and our dark story to those who are willing to understand it. We are currently working on new material and trying to expand to playing in other territories.

What are your influences?

Metal wise, mostly 80s first wave black/death, early 90s black/death stuff, thrash and traditional metal of course. Bands like Bathory, Destruction, Sarcofago, Sodom, Dissection, Windir, Sabbat (JAP), Sigh, The Chasm, Possessed, Order From Chaos, Morbid Angel, Immortal, Voivod, Mercyful Fate, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost…etc, the classic essential extreme metal to us. My favorite band along with Bathory would probably have to be Pink Floyd. My favorite composer is Nobuo Uematsu. Ryan (our drummer) shares these same influences with myself. James also has a deep background in the blues. With a lot of these influences we’ve been able to craft our sound and find our identity. We listen to all kinds of music of course, but these artists that I just named have given us all that inspiration we needed to create our own identity. We’ve noticed our identity from the early stages of the band, and since then we’ve mostly looked inward for inspiration as opposed to looking outward.

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

Bands like Order From Chaos, The Chasm, Cenotaph, (old) Morbid Angel, Inquisition, are some bands that have been favourites of mine in the recent years. I still gain influence from most of the classic bands I named above as well. However, discovering an album like Procreation of the Inner Temple by The Chasm was life changing. Never before had I heard something so truly ancient and majestic sounding. The strange melodies, the dusty recording, it just sounded otherworldly. That’s the music I like the most. I remember hearing it for the first time with our old guitarist Avik, around 5:00 AM after a long night of drinking….the perfect state of mind to hear that album! I get fascinated by cryptic recordings that are hard to decipher, not just bestial black/death…but stuff that actually has a lot of depth and articulation underneath the lo-fi sound. Albums like Stillbirth Machine and An Ending In Fire by Order From Chaos had this same quality and they are some of my favourite albums.

What did you want to achieve with your new album?

Well calling it new isn’t possible for us. Yes, it is new to the world, but to us its over 4 years old. I’m definitely proud of the album though. We all had goals that we wanted to achieve through the album and I think we accomplished most of them. I specifically had a certain indescribable calling to make an album taking place in an abyssal underworld. The inspiration came when I heard Bathory – The Return…… an album that changed my path in life, and still to this day is my all time favourite album. That was the first piece of metal I’d ever heard that took me away from where I was standing at the time of hearing it. It oozed pure darkness and evil, and it instantly clicked with my imagination. I wanted to make a soundtrack like that, to the blackest of black worlds. I know that obviously Beyond The Forest sounds nothing like The Return…. and that’s a good thing of course. That album, along with some old RPG games I used to play as a kid on MS-DOS, provided most of the inspiration to create The Orcus underworld in Beyond The Forest.

My favourite track is Beyond the Forest, an epic and empowering song. Tell us a bit more about this one.

Beyond The Forest was actually the last song written on the album. It was compiled with most of the left over riffs that had not gotten into other songs. The song really just wrote itself. I remember James getting behind the drum-kit at the time and helping guide me through the song. Of most of the songs, that one came out the most natural. I remember writing it very fast, but spending a good deal of time on the lyrics. I still view those lyrics as some of the most important I’ve ever made. It really sets up the premise of the story, and I’m very proud of what came out of that.

Are you happy with how it turned out?

Definitely. Being a musician is like a creating a timeline for yourself. It connects you to the most pure feeling you had at each point in your life. Yes, when I look back, there are a million things that could’ve been done better. But there is no use in worrying about the past. What’s done is done and I’m certainly proud that it has reached so many people.

What can you tell us about the lyrics?

Without going into great detail, I can say this: the lyrics are conceptual and based on what we call The Wolf Ausadjur Mythos. This mythos is collectively inspired by all forms of spirituality fused all into one story. Its a re-interpretation of the creation story, only with human beings as the conductors of the spirit realm(s). The story looks into man’s evolution out from the wild with emphasis on one key point: the evolution of inventive thought, or imagination. This power is to be considered the most crucial factor in the creation of tribes, language, culture, civilization…etc. These are all by-products of our ability to imagine what’s not there and replicate what’s in our minds using the natural tools we have on earth. Most importantly from imagination comes the conception of good and evil. In our story, these concepts are literal forces created by the human mind, using the conduit of what we call The Spirit Genome. This is a metaphysical organ within the brain that allows us to access the powers of good and evil from the dimensions that we have created. These worlds are known as The Orcus (latin: underworld) and The Aurae (latin: heavens, or light). The story of Beyond The Forest deals with our protagonist, Valdrin and his descent into the underworld of the Orcus and the subsequent journey that follows. Everything else can be described within the lyrics on Beyond The Forest.

Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process, and how do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?

The songwriting process usually begins with me making a basic skeleton of a song. I’ll usually program some drums based on what I believe would sound good over each riff. After that, I sit back and let the song tell me what’s happening in the story and that’s where the lyrics come from. Once I show the song to the rest of the guys, we go through a process of trial and error in figuring out what works best for song. Recently however, we’ve written a lot more material together in the rehearsal room and often James and Ryan have ideas about where the song should go. Its becoming a more collaborative process due to us all fully understanding our concept and having faith in each other’s abilities.

What’s next for Valdrin?

We are working on recording our new mini-lp “Two Carrion Talismans” it should be finished somewhere in mid 2015. We are also playing often in new territories and looking to put together a tour around the mid-west and east coast. We have many plans in the future and we are very driven to deliver our new music unto this world. Hails to all our supporters! We cannot wait to conqueror more territories and spread our netherworld metal!