Another former CDRWL entry that I've checked in for the collection recently. My original notes:
Valhalla's sole album is more typical of the "USA confused year of 1970" than 1969. You can tell they are shedding their psychedelic past, yet that sound is still very prominent in Valhalla's repertoire. Certainly UK bands like Deep Purple had a profound influence on Valhalla and there's also an obvious - what we now call proto-progressive sound with a strong organ presence. Comparisons to bands like Vanilla Fudge and Iron Butterfly wouldn't be out of place either. Definitely worthy of a professional reissue. At this point, the album is languishing in the gutters of the pirate market.
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And the latter sadly remains true. As far as overall sound goes, there's a lot of parallels with the Yesterday's Children album I'd recently reported on. This kind of "hard psych" didn't seem to get a stronghold here in the States and the major labels moved away from the sound quickly, thus their rarity today. There's a lot of great tracks here, with 'I'm Not Askin' and 'JBT' as notable highlights. There's some mild string presence proving they did consider a hedge bet on the overall heaviness.
Interesting to learn that Valhalla's first group moniker was Yesterday's Children, though unrelated to that band.
Ownership: LP: 1969 United Artists. Gatefold. Acquired from JL before the Austin Record show (2023). Nice cover (and not cut like Discogs' stock photo). As noted above, no legitimate reissues have surfaced.
4/26/11; 12/13/13 (CDRWL); 5/21/23 (new entry)
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