Valletta – Come Alive Review

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This is the debut album of Valletta, a band that explores the so-called Black’n’Roll, a term designated to bands that mix Black Metal features as the vocals and lyrical content to a more instrumental Rock approach. That means that the band uses major chords predominantly over minor chords and a regular tunning in A – some modern Black Metal bands prefer to tune their instruments in B to make them a little lower giving the impression that the music is heavier. That’s why instrumentals here address much more to a Hard Rock sense than to Black Metal. Here Valletta come with a more 1980’s approach with some dissonances and Gothic Rock influences being “Saint” the greatest example of this sonancy. However, regarding to Valletta there are many other ingredients to the dough as “Criminal” showcases my dear child of the night. It’s never easy to put a band as Valletta into a framed and rigid definition.

For many fans this mix might sound a little bit strange or even uncanny. However, thinking in retrospective, it is simply a comeback to the origins of Metal music back in the 1970s. Of course, it’s not simple like this, but if my dear child of the night might remember well this is the way bands as Motörhead used to sound adding the distinct death grunts, growls and gruff sounding vocals of today’s Extreme Metal. Some tracks as “Bringing the Worst” astonish the fan with all its melodic grip and the 1980’s Gothic Rock mood. In the very especific case of Valletta, my guess is that they are much more influenced by bands as The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees than to Heavy Rock or Hard Rock as other bands that share the labelling. It’s, in fact, no wonder as they share the same lyrical themes and imagery. This gives an exciting approach to songs as the album welcomer and tittle track “Come Alive” with all its guitar solos.

Here we’ve got a band that goes a little out of the box. Black’n’Roll bands aren’t exactly the most common to pop up here and Valletta are a grateful surprise. Let’s say ‘it’s great to be dead’ expresses the real meaning of their music. The bands adds some happyness – if it’s possible to use the word – to Black Metal.

Valletta “Come Alive” was released on July 14th.

Track Listing:

  1. Come Alive
  2. Serpents of Solomon
  3. Saint
  4. Criminal
  5. Soot and Ash
  6. Bringing the Worst

Watch “Come Alive” official lyric video here:

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