Chuck Schuldiner Project

Monday, February 21, 2011

Valley of the Damned-DragonForce

 Today I am reviewing one of the essential power metal bands greatest albums. I am covering DragonForce's classic Valley of the Damned. This is their debut album but they have no difficulty proving themselves as a more than capable power metal band. They have all of the hard and soaring riffs that make DragonForce so good. Also the cover art is pretty darn cool. The guitar has a really good feel, it is constantly escalating in power. The bass is solid and helps to keep up a strong beat. The drums are hard and really fast hitting and thus very impressive. All in all this is an incredible first album from DragonForce.
The guitar has several really great aspects that makes DragonForce one of the best power metal bands. The main aspect that makes DragonForce really good is the sheer speed of some of the guitar solos that are played. The solos go so fast it is almost hard not to label this as a shred album. DragonForce is either really technically skilled, or they speed up their solos. If the solos are real then they are an incredible band, if not then wow they are horrible posers. The bass is steady and provides a good driving feel to the music along with the drums. The drums are really good on this album for two reasons. 1. They keep the beat well. 2. When given a fill the drummer does an amazing job. Essentially the instrumentalists of DragonForce are pretty awesome, if its real.
The vocals are fabulous and you can not question their reality. They have a lot of power behind them, however they are a bit high to have the operatic might of the greats like Dickinson. The vocals do have a certain sing-a-long feel and they really make the music have a great quality. There are some autotuned bits which tick me off a little but asides from that I think that the vocals are pretty awesome. The one thing the vocalist could do is put a bit more soul behind his singing. That would make his good vocals great. The lyrics are primarily fantasy based and have a great sound. They come across well and leave quite a few interesting concepts in their wake.
Overall DragonForce is a great band, if they are real. As I have found no good evidence that they are slowing their tapes then I have to accept that they are real and are thus amazing. They have everything that a good power metal band should have and they rock it well. The guitar is a powerful and fast bird swooping in with insane solos. The bass is rock steady and helps the music a lot and I truly enjoy it. The drums are also magnificent and provide a great feel to the music.The vocals are well done even if they do lack a bit of Umph behind them. The lyrics are excellent and I truly enjoy them. All in all DragonForce is a pretty awesome band with a pretty awesome album.
OVERALL 9/10

24 comments:

  1. "constantly escalating in power"

    How is this possible? Does it actually get more and more powerful as the album goes along, without ever dipping in intensity?

    "The drums are hard and really fast hitting and thus very impressive."

    Drums tend not to be soft. They also tend not to do any hitting. Thus very impressive.

    "The drums are really good on this album for two reasons. 1. They keep the beat well. 2. When given a fill the drummer does an amazing job."

    You know you already complimented them in the first paragraph, yeah? As for point 1: yes, yes, studio-recorded drums keeping time well. I agree, that's truly exceptional.

    "The vocals are fabulous and you can not question their reality."

    I just did. U mad?

    "[The vocals] have a lot of power behind them [...] the one thing the vocalist could do is put a bit more strength behind his singing"

    Mate, that would be seriously fucking powerful. Out of this world!

    "The [lyrics] come across well and leave quite a few interesting concepts in their wake."

    Such as?

    "Overall DragonForce is a great band, if they are real."

    I don't think they exist either.

    "The guitar is a powerful and fast bird swooping in with insane solos."

    The guitar is actually a bird?

    "The bass is rock steady and helps the music a lot and I truly enjoy it."

    I suppose constant root notes could be labelled 'steady', yes.

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  3. Your taking this guy entirely too seriously, there's no way anyone is this literal.

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  4. 1, when i said escalting in power i meant on a per song level
    2. pretty often drummers fail to get good fills
    3. what effects could the vocalist have used then?
    4. your right i prob should have talked more about that but as i said earlier they focus on the silmarillion
    5. as in they might be slowing the tapes
    6. you have no respect for poetry
    7. you are correct my boy
    8. do you seriously scavenge the internet to make fun of people?

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  5. "1, when i said escalting in power i meant on a per song level"

    I don't... I don't even know what that means, sorry.

    "2. pretty often drummers fail to get good fills"

    The Dragonforce guy is masterful at original fills, yeah. Those straight 16ths going down the toms are pretty unique.

    "3. what effects could the vocalist have used then"

    They should just have sampled the sound your mum makes when I wipe my arse on her tits. Don't knock it till you've tried it!

    "6. you have no respect for poetry"

    Oh, that's made me sad. Sad, but also irritated, because I doubt you've ever fucking well read a poem.

    "7. you are correct my boy"

    I am your boy, yes! Despite the fact you're thirteen. I am, in fact, two years old.

    "8. do you seriously scavenge the internet to make fun of people?"

    Yeah brah. Speaking of bras: your mum.

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  6. "Your taking this guy entirely too seriously, there's no way anyone is this literal."

    It's 'you're', dear boy.

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  7. FYI i have gotten in a couple poetry magazines Webb

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  8. Webb, ur the biggest douche bag ever, u have way too much time on ur hands if u spent all that time typing the shit i just skipped through.... basically what im trying to say is... SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET A LIFE

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  9. Guys, this Webb guy is trolling pretty hard. I mean, look at the way he just squeezes the things you say completely dry for material to fire back. Perhaps something so small to set himself above you as a grammatical error of you're versus your.

    Well done, Webb. I'm glad you were able to troll some random blogspot. Your craft is just beautiful. You know what else it is? Original. Oh, and COMPLETELY the greatest use of your time you could possibly imagine.

    <3

    Yes, please Webb! I would love of it if you could just send some snarky response to this message. Perhaps end your message with a <3 as some sort of spite against me. I'm dying to read it.

    <3~

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  10. Bravo Webb, this is the single finest, most intelligent instance of internet trolling I've ever seen. It is just beautiful how you saw the humor in taking figures of speach, sarcasm, and metaphors entirely too literally, when everyone else abandoned such sophisticated humor long before you were (probably) born. Congrats on the *excellent* troll, keep up the hard work.

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  11. Wow Webb, good job you sure showed him...do you honestly have nothing better to do than bash on people for their grammar? Get a life.
    Also not only is your bashing pointless and simply annoying, but I think you mispelled something:

    "I just did. U mad?"

    That would be "you", my girl.

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  12. Most recent Anon: I think you'll find I got it from here, sweetheart.

    http://www.google.fr/images?q=u+mad&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=fr&tab=wi

    Dan: It's only half trolling, in that I'm actually trying to make a point. It has, typically, gone right over your head, so here it is a bit more simply: your writing is appalling, and your reviews utterly devoid of insight or analysis, and contain nothing going beyond stating obvious facts and talking about the fact that there are instruments and that they are played. Brilliant! Scathing stuff there. I suggest that, if you can't take feedback (however provocative and petty it may be), you should stop smearing your drivel on the internet.

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  13. "It is just beautiful how you saw the humor in taking figures of speach, sarcasm, and metaphors entirely too literally,"

    No, actually; I saw humour in your inability to make any kind of insight, and I also found your convoluted, badly proof-read excuse for writing hilarious - if painful.

    "when everyone else abandoned such sophisticated humor long before you were (probably) born."

    That's a bit of a tall claim. What you're trying to tell me is that literally no-one has taken pleasure in dissecting awful writing since July 1990. I find that rather difficult to believe, don't you?

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  14. <3 Anon:

    "Oh, and COMPLETELY the greatest use of your time you could possibly imagine. "

    Oh, do please get some perspective. I spend about ten minutes doing this in my time off. Some people frantically wank, some watch TV, I irritate people. Is that so shocking?

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  15. "basically what im trying to say is... SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET A LIFE"

    Ah, the typical non-argument of the thirteen year old. The one which he, himself, uses while commenting on something on the internet, blissfully unaware of the sheer, unadulterated irony of doing so.

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  16. "FYI i have gotten in a couple poetry magazines Webb"

    Oh dear. Standards really are falling. Still, it has no effect on your ability to critically appraise it.

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  17. This review really does suck. Sorry fellas, but you gotta work a bit more.

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  19. Point is, you suck as a troll, if you want to rip on the site, cool, go ahead, we aren't deleting your crap, but at least learn how to troll beyond humor less mutations of figures of speech. I would venture as far as to say that the site serves as a tool to us to develop our writing ability, granted, people post decent complaints back, rather than half assed trolls. Yes, my writing is appalling. Since you so clearly *love* the site, why don't you pitch in a couple ideas? Neither of us profess to be experts with this, it provides a tool for some unsigned bands to be able to become exposed to at least a handful of people, and it give us a tool to potentially develop our writing ability.

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  20. Imma put a last word in here, webb, if u dont like the site get the fuck outta here. or just cut the shit and say smtg useful that helps the author write better. and dude.... make it a whole hell of alot shorter cause most people see that book u wrote, they hit down arrow till it ends

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  21. "if u dont like the site get the fuck outta here"

    Nah, I like it here.

    "or just cut the shit and say smtg useful that helps the author write better"

    All right.

    A. Read more books - fuck, read more anything, really - and pick up some stylistic tips.

    B. See how other people review stuff and what they're going after. Aim for insight instead of tedious, meaningless, redundant descriptions. At the moment, I could compare your stuff to a review of the Godfather which goes as deep as "There are gangsters and killings in it, some of the suits looked cool".

    "make it a whole hell of alot shorter cause most people see that book u wrote, they hit down arrow till it ends"

    I can't say I'll lose much sleep over it.

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  22. Webb, pardon my ignorance, what do you mean by insight? I'm familiar with the term as it applies to analyzing literature, e.g. english teachers making students pick through books to find all sorts of symbolism that the author probably didnt intend to include, but not where it applies to music review.

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  23. Stylistically, I'm assuming I'm writing passive voice / not enough paragraph breaks / poorly organized structure, correct?

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  24. "but not where it applies to music review"

    Just try to say something interesting!

    "Stylistically, I'm assuming I'm writing passive voice / not enough paragraph breaks / poorly organized structure, correct?"

    All of the above, as well as run-on sentences and a desperate lack of spelling and grammar checking.

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