GOOD MORNING! Sorry to get a late start today. But the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and it’s a wonderful thirty-four degrees here in NYC. What better way to start the day than with a healthy breakfast and some new black metal?

So. Valkyrja. I have almost no idea how you pronounce that name, but the band’ new album, Contamination, was released on Metal Blade earlier this week, and our own Sammy O’Hagar gave it a glowing review. Here’s an excerpt, in case you’re a dope and you didn’t read it:

Swedish upstarts Valkyrja have the big, groovy black metal formula down pat, employing stadium-sized guitars that manage to nod to black metal’s origins but not collapse under their own bloated weight. Like a good black metal album, it’s got wonderfully constructed, haunting songs as well as velocity; like a good metal album, it’s heavy as fuck. If you think you’d enjoy the genre’s minor key doomsday riffing if it had a little more balls to it, well, Valkyrja’s Contamination is the album for you.

Well that certainly sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

Lucky for you, the band is streaming a track off the album, “Solstice in Withdrawl,” here. And we think that you should go check it out. And tell ‘em Sammy O’Hagar sent you.

-AR