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Vallenfyre - Biography


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2011-
Logo by Glyn Smith.

Biography

Paradise Lost guitarist and songwriter Gregor Mackintosh has formed this new band along with members of My Dying Bride, At The Gates, and Doom. The band's debut album A Fragile King will be released on October 31st, 2011, in Europe and on November 1st, 2011, in North America through Century Media Records. Vallenfyre is not a one-off project and will continue as a band that will also play live in 2012.

The death metal band signed a worldwide deal with Century Media Records and has released the Desecration 7" on Imperium Productions, which was limited to 500 copies.

The events that led to the conception and formation of Vallenfyre are not particularly happy or pretty ones.

"In the late summer of 2009, my father John Mackintosh was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Later in the autumn as his treatment progressed, Paradise Lost embarked on the their European tour to support the latest album Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us. A week into this, I received a call from my mother telling me that the doctors had found cancer in his lungs and it was terminal. He only had weeks to live. I made the decision to leave the tour leaving my very able guitar tech Milly (not be confused with Vallenfyre's Mully) to take my place. I went and stayed with my parents for the next few weeks. After a very sad and painful time he passed away on December 2nd, early in the morning. Over the next few weeks I experienced all the famous stages of grief. It started to become very self destructive so I decided to channel it into creating something. To pay respects to the man that drove us to our very first gigs because none of us could drive. The only dad I knew that listened to Bolt Thrower's Peel Sessions on the radio. The guy who gave me my first chord book. I decided that I was going to go right back to the beginning. To my roots in Death, Crust and Doom. It all started very angst-ridden. This wasn't originally meant for anyone else to hear. It was a release. After recording some material I realized that I was actually enjoying doing this but I wanted friends involved so it could actually become real fun."

The 7" tracks and the upcoming album were recorded between December 2010 and April 2011.

Greg comments: "The album is called A Fragile King, which is a reference to my fathers' battle with cancer. The lyrics are predominantly about the same thing but also include gripes with society, religion, politics and relationships as well. It's all pretty grim."