Band:	Valkija
Album:	Avengers Of Steel
Style:	Heavy metal, Power metal
Release date:	2004

01. The Last One
02. Hold On
03. Eyes Of The Shadows
04. Return Of The King
05. Sign Of The Hammer
06. The Unknown Kadath
07. Soon Of Thunder
08. Steel Avenger
09. Hatchet Blade

This is not the album I would bought if I saw it at a record store. In sale. Last in stock. For 1 dollar. Even for one cigarette. This has to be the worst looking Cd cover art of 2004. The band used the minimum effort law to design a mediocre and ordinary cover art, and I could rant about the awful Cd art all day long, but hey, I'm here for the music not for the fine art, so let's get going, shall we?

Valkija is a female fronted Heavy Metal band, with some hints of Power Metal here and there, their singer, who goes under the Zoraija moniker, has a powerful voice, the best thing about her is that her voice is not operatic, is not sweet nor enchanting in any way, is just freaking aggressive and has the whole eighties Heavy Metal spirit in it. Her voice is awesome until she forces it, when she does the falsettos and screams her voice sounds awful, take for example "Steel Avenger" a good up-tempo song until she starts screaming, that's enough to skip the song before it ends.

Musically, yes it brings back memories from the eighties, but since the eighties happened a long time ago (like 20 years, for those too lazy to do the math) hence, this is a little predictable. Fortunately not all songs are fast tempo, and this is not a bag of clichés, but it can become quite boring at times. Some songs though, dared to change the established routine and surprised me, like "The Unknown Kadath" a song that starts slowly, and then builds up always maintaining an epic feeling to it, and I can swear that there's some growling in the back.

Basically, this is for nostalgic people, those who miss the eighties and those who have to own each female fronted Metal band album (phew, good luck collecting that!) might found this a amusing release. As for me, I must say that I found the music a little less mediocre than the cover, but still average and predictable.