Austrian black metallers VALFEANOR have released their sophomore album on Swiss label Black Tower Productions. Titled Noreia, the album is named after the ancient city in the Eastern Alps, whose location is much disputed, and is often thought to have been situated in the Austrian region of Styria, where Valfeanor is based. The ten-track album is the follow up to Valfeanor’s 2007 release En Ny Tid.

Tracklisting as follows:

'Noreia'

'Christian Eclipse'

'Emptiness/Dolorosus/Hate'

'A Wintry Sea'

'Glacially Ancient Existence'

'Forsaken'

'Aeon Der Schatten'

'Soil of Wisdom'

'Region des Nebels und des Regens'

'Deepression'

Founded in 2002 by Desderoth, Valfeanor is based around a nucleus of Desderoth himself on vocals, bass and keyboards, and Isiul on guitars and backing vocals, with session drummer Skull being drafted in for recording. Both Desderoth and Isiul are also members of the Austrian black metal band HELLSAW.

Noreia, with its rawer vocals and old school black metal sound, signals a significant departure from Valfeanor’s debut album, which was loosely based around fantasy themes and was much more melodic in concept.

Commented Desderoth: “Basically, both albums represent different styles that I wanted to experiment with, and it is not the intention of this band to limit itself in what terms of what it writes or plays. The third album has now been written, and we will most probably start recording guitars in January, and it will again be different from what came before. Let’s just say”, Desderoth comments somewhat tongue in cheek, “it was written during a period when I was going through a particularly bad time in my life, so I managed to get a lot of it out of my system by doing a fair amount of “trashing”.

More information about Valfeanor can be found on the band’s MySpace page at www.myspace.com/valfeanor.