Valkyrie / Vog – “Withered Tree / ?” – self-released [Lucky 7-inch #38 / Out Of Print #2]

The Valkyrie/Vog 7-inch, Out Of Print (OOP) for an eternity now, presented itself to me at a record store that was going out of business (I guess you could say Bart’s CD Cellar in Boulder, Colo., is now Out Of Print, too). 

Of course I didn’t even realize Virginia’s Valkyrie are a pre-Baroness band (though in all fairness they’re still together and releasing stuff on labels like Twin Earth and Kreation), but that’s not the point because the V-rie portion of this split is only half the fun. 

Vog, a relatively unknown quantity — for this reviewer; check out a great summation HERE — from Va., supply most of the fun with their ramshackle approach that combs over Bloodlet, Dystopia, Doomriders, Heroin and even some death metal on its way to the sloppier-than-thou underground vaults.

Think of Vog as a poor man’s Southern Lord band for someone that actually isn’t a pauper at all but a collector of brutal music who likes things just a bit grimier than the average bearded metal man-bear. There’s even a titter of a sound effect, right at the beginning, that teases at something more in-depth … that never happens.

If you’re a neck-tattoo’d old-schooler, rest assured traces of old hardcore linger over each riff like a fog you think is following you but it can’t be following you — right? — but it just keeps on following you despite the fact that a fog can’t follow you. Can it?  

I wish I could express similar enthusiasm for Valkyrie’s “Withered.” Rolled together like an old Fudge Tunnel-on-Rye Coalition split-spliff (with a glass of Harvey Milk), “Withered” ‘s vocal performance is a shade above a Southern-fried Danzig nightmare and one of those terrible FM half-metal bands of the late-’90s (think Stabbing Westward) — not a showing suitable for a duo, Jake and Pete Adams, that went on to produce the lofty following accorded Baroness (though I am not one of those followers, so take that how you will).

The breakdown of cipher-hot-’n'-crispy twin guitars does steer “Withered” over to the Sleep side of the room, but I’m still calling “time out.” Stoner-rock is the great equalizer, is it not? So great when it’s done right (two songs off every Queens Of The Stone Age/Eagles Of Death Metal album; Kyuss; Om; aren’t Hawkwind sorta s-rock?), so rank almost all of the time (the rest of the songs off QOTSA/DODM albums; High On Fire; Saviours; Coliseum). 

Despite all this bitchin’ this isn’t a release to be passed up in the Used Bin. It could happen to you …