Reviews

I will be totally honest about the issue I take with new technology. I find it annoying to listen to music out of essentially a microchip the size of a Fig Newton with attached headphones. I have a mid nineties portable CD player with the cosmetic build of a battle-bot that works about a third of the time and when it does the batteries usually fall out of the bottom. I am not telling you this for nothing, for the screen on my seemingly indestructible piece of stone-age technology is broken, unless I really am actually constantly listening to the first zero seconds of track zero nonstop. This explains my disappointing tale of “Legend of the World”, the new LP from North Carolina’s own Valient Thorr. When I turned on the CD, unaware that it was on shuffle, the first song that blasted through my headphones was “Exit Strategy”, the third track of the CD; a war protest song that took me back to the days of listening to my dad’s old collection of The Doors. The song opens with the raspy vocal anti war cry, “Is it your son with the plan/to fight some war in a desert land/he ain’t gonna come home again/he’s makin’ some money for a Texas man.” This was more than enough to spark my interest in the band. I thought this was a great opening track, setting the tone for a good old fashioned stripped down rock and roll CD. I got about halfway through the track when I looked up a track listing and realized my error, and went back to the opening track of the CD “Heatseeker”. This was a slightly less intriguing opening track. In fact I found it down right unsavory as an opening track.  
 
To be fair to the band, they are doing something a little different than any band I’ve reviewed as of late. They have an unmistakable classic rock influence whose sound can be compared to anything from Kiss to Skynyrd; so this was a CD I desperately wanted to like. The problem was, “Legend of the World” is something I could only listen to if I was in the mood to listen to nothing but Valient Thorr. I liked parts of the CD, but most of the tracks on it are nothing I can connect to. The CD itself is a bit impersonal, mostly consisting of anti government propaganda and casting shame upon the congress that supports the war in Iraq. The CD has a lot of ass kicking guitar riffs, but often times ends up kicking itself in the ass by forcing an awkward, uncomfortable sound.
 
The band has a neat little gimmick going I must admit, playing off of the idea that they’re from Venus and they are here to save the world with the power of rock and roll; but the cheesy fun of their bio can only take me so far into the CD. Overall, Valient Thorr’s “Legend of the World” is definitely something to listen to once in a while, but if I had to listen to “Legend of the World” and nothing but it every day for a year, I might consider going into hibernation. I give it weak 3 stars, but check it out for yourself. I can see how some people would like it, but I couldn’t get into it as deeply as I would have liked to.