Album Review: Rietas – Torne Valley Black Metal
Band: Rietas
Album: Torne Valley Black Metal
Label: KVLT
Release date: October 31st 2025
Country: Finland
Format reviewed: High quality digital recording
Album Review: Rietas – Torne Valley Black Metal via KVLT by Ioana
Well… wow. That’s the only introduction I can come up with for this one. And in a way, it’s not by any means a surprising one, despite the relative long time it took me to get to this album. And leaving aside that particular personal shortcoming… it would’ve been a crime if I had just let it slip. Especially since I knew it was coming and what it was bound to entail. But I digress.
Those of you who are familiar with the work of Ari Pitkänen, his main band Curse Upon a Prayer specifically, most likely have already noticed the attention to detail and devotion that he weaves into his music. And it shows up on Rietas, this record in particular, to an equal extent. There’s something about “Torne Valley Black Metal” that feels… lived in. It has this old, almost antiquated feel to it, while simultaneously brimming with life and nothing short of fervor. Less a forgotten ghost of the past and more the ever present howl of a wind roaming the same lands since the beginning of time. It’s hard to describe in straightforward terms, simply because standard language doesn’t do it justice. As is typically the case of such records, one can only attempt to capture their mood with at least vaguely poetic language.
The “lived in” feeling I mentioned previously can be traced to several sources, as far as I can tell. First of which being the time span in which it was written. Simply stated, it has been in the works ever since the project first formed, around 2020. The first single of the album, “Pirun Walssi” was actually released for the first time back in 2022. All that being said, it is obvious both from this and the sound of the album itself that a lot of time and care lived into it, to the extent where it comes of as incredibly mature in all regards, despite being Rietas’ debut full length. Another source behind this mood the album evokes is of course, the very specific vision it embodies, which is, as far as I can tell, that of reflecting the land of its origin, Torne Valley in Finland.
Onto the music itself… let’s just say it’s like reading old folk tales from a dusty tome in a long abandoned house. The raw production, with static around the corners and its oscilation between sharpness and the more muffled moments, gives it an ephemeral quality, almost as of the pages of said dusty tome are crumbling and falling off as you read them, taking the myths with them. But at the same time, the songwriting and performance itself, is, as I stated previously, brimming with vitality and strength. The tome is fading, but its words continue to linger. This contrast is most obvious in the dynamic between the drums and the guitar. The rhythm changes, the blast beats, they’re dynamic, they’re audible, but the production places them somewhere in the back of the music, further away from the listener. They’re not the kind that hit you in the chest and plunder you into oblivion. Simultaneously, the sound of the guitars is crystalized by the raw production, which offers it a sharper, albeit at times frayed sound, that solidifies their face in the foreground of the music. The way the more melodic lead riffs just… roam freely through the soundscape is nothing short of mesmerizing. It’s one of those great cases of melody amplifying the intensity and extremity of a record, instead of diluting it.
Obviously, the vocal performance in itself is nothing short of masterful, but, again, that’s not exactly surprising. Still, it serves as a testament to Ari Pitkänen’s skills in matters of phrasing, technical versatility and overall expressive capacity. Each lyric is treated with utmost care, to the point where even those without knowledge of the Finnish language, such as myself, can feel the weight of each word just by the way it is being delivered. And that’s an incredible feat by all means. Not many vocalists manage to do it, and even less are capable of refining this approach to the extent visible on “Torne Valley Black Metal”.
No discourse surrounding this album would be complete if there was no talk of the way samples are being used on it. All throughout the record, one can find scattered movie samples, song samples, and spoken word passages, all of which appear to have been taken from relevantly antiquated sources. And this is where the album’s personality truly shines. Let’s just say, these samples do a great deal when it comes to developing and highlighting the atmosphere and the concept.
While every song on the album can be taken and analyzed thoroughly, I would like to settle on the one that stuck with me most, and the one I’ve found myself listening to all over again. The track in question is the aforementioned “Pirun Walssi”, and I am not exaggerating when I’m saying that it stirred something in me. The waltz-like cadence, the samples the stormlike riffing, the vocal performance… they all just come together to create nothing short of a work of art. I can’t exactly put my finger on what exactly that is, since it comes off as an amalgamation of multiple feelings at once but… holy hell. It’s the kind of songs that just reminds you of why you resonated with black metal in the first place. It feels like it’s being played from the marrow of the soul, in all honesty,
Despite what the presence of this review might suggest, this album left me nothing short of speechless, even though as I said, I should have expected it would hit me like this. But still… let’s just say this kind of music has that capacity of just taking you by surprise when you least expect it. It should be obvious by now, but by all means, “Torne Valley Black Metal” is not only a must-listen, but, as far as I can tell, an album that will stand the test of time. 10/10
10/10 Immortal Classic
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