To be truthful with all of you readers out there, I have never heard of the band Valhalla. When we received the promo at Metal Reviews for their latest album "Nightbreed", I immediately expressed interest based on the name of the band alone. With a name like Valhalla, my guess was that the music would be power metal in the vein of bands like Hammerfall, Stormwarrior, Sacred Steel, Rhapsody and Blind Guardian.

After having a chance to listen to "Nightbreed", I really wasn't far off. Traces and elements of the bands mentioned above can be found in the music of Valhalla: bombastic chanting choruses; double bass drum barrages; lead vocals that range from the depths of Hell to the halls of Asgard; crunchy guitar power chords with blistering leads and riffs; All of these are characteristics that define an epic power metal band.

My first guess was that Valhalla was from Germany, Scandinavia or even Italy. Nope! They are from Vizcaya, Spain and were formed in 1997. With "Nightbreed" they now have four albums. The band includes Javi "Patxa" Navarro (vocals, backing vocals, choirs), Jevo (guitar, bass guitar, choirs), Mikel Martinez (guitar,choirs), Ivan Corcuera (drums) and Chefy (bass guitar).

Overall the songs are majestic and catchy. There is a good mix of fast, mid paced and slower songs. They want to make you get the armor out with sword in hand, ready to fight! The album's production is also very good.

The vocalist has a bit of Geoff Tate to his voice.

One very interesting side note I wanted to comment on is the band's cover version of the Village People song "In The Navy". It's the last song on the album. What I can tell you is that this version kicks major ass! It sounds like an armed forces recruiting song the way Valhalla re-did this and made it their own. In fact, when I first saw the title, I was hoping it wasn't the same song as the Village People. But I was very pleased. Very surprising!

This album is definitely worth getting. For more info on the band go to their site. The website is in Spanish.