{"id":25296,"date":"2014-01-14T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-14T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-the-valiant-empress-heights\/"},"modified":"2018-03-17T15:29:46","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T15:29:46","slug":"album-review-the-valiant-empress-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-the-valiant-empress-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Valiant &#8211; Empress Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/tumblr_inline_mzc5n5Gxpt1qztcot.png\" title=\"\"><strong>The Valiant<\/strong> is a metalcore band residing from Southampton. While the scene in general is crowded with a whole host of bands using the cut and paste methods of creating music, can <strong>The Valiant <\/strong>stand their ground?<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2018Empress Heights\u2019,\u00a0<\/em>while being the first release from the band, holds its head high with its ability to showcase a good clean metalcore album. The riffs are melodic as well as weighty while the drums are able to progressively act upon the mood of the tracks present. However, the most impressive feature are the vocals. Following very closely to Bury Tomorrow\u2019s approach, harsh vocals scatter the \u2018hefty\u2019 areas and the clean vocals are chorus abundant, which allows for diversity and is executed extremely well. <!-- more --><\/p>\n<p>Kicking off with a rather uninspiring introduction track, <em>\u2018Origin\u2019<\/em> is an ambient burner with piano segments, but does fill its role of creating an atmosphere. This leads into the opener track of the album <em>\u2018Changes\u2019<\/em> which follows a more traditional suite of metalcore including: heavy riffs, melody and breakdowns.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Continuing in pace is <em>\u2018Alive\u2019<\/em> with energising guitars and chugging passages while having the wonderfully oxymoronic vocals complementing each other. Applying the same mechanic structure to other songs such as <em>\u2018No Surrender\u2019<\/em>, <em>\u2018Dead and Buried\u2019<\/em> and <em>\u2018Reaper,\u2019<\/em> <em>\u2018Empress Heights\u2019 <\/em>shapes itself well by playing on it\u2019s own strengths and not drawing any of the songs out to boredom or filler. <em>\u2018Convictions\u2019,\u00a0<\/em>a highlight of the album, showcases the strongest aspects of this band; the contrasting vocal types. The song starts fast but evolves into a stunning melodic gem with an awe-inspiring chorus and crescendoed ending leaving the listener wanting more.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t an earth shattering release by any means, maybe even considered a \u2018metalcore-by-numbers\u2019 approach. For every little element, which has been copied or borrowed from other bands, it has been done with the utmost reason and this reviewer cannot fault the absolute polish this album has. <em>\u2018Empress Heights\u2019<\/em> has built a solid foundation for future releases and <strong>The Valiant<\/strong> have pulled off an impressive debut.<\/p>\n<p>4\/5<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2018Empress Heights\u2019<\/em> by <strong>The Valiant<\/strong> is released on 20th January.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Valiant<\/strong> links: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thevaliantband\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>|<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheValiantband\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Words by Grant Fullick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Valiant is a metalcore band residing from Southampton. While the scene in general is crowded with a whole host of bands using the cut and paste methods of creating music, can The Valiant stand their ground? \u2018Empress Heights\u2019,\u00a0while being the first release from the band, holds its head high with its ability to showcase [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8181],"tags":[5879,10767,10550],"class_list":["post-25296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-post","tag-album-reviews","tag-empress-heights","tag-the-valiant"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Album Review: The Valiant - Empress Heights - Already Heard Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Valiant is a metalcore band residing from Southampton. 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