When writing lyrics that are meant to tell a story, you don’t have much room to maneuver. Bruce Springsteen’s Born to run average about 280 words per song. Word count is compromised by song lengths and harmonies, while serving as the only linguistic element of musical storytelling. Plots and characters require tangible details through words, but music develops atmospheres. And yet, Valdrin excel in both areas. The Cincinnati, Ohio-based group balances sword and sorcery imagery with tangible plot progressions, so much so that one can read the lyrics of their latest album, 2023 Throne of the Moon SoulTrack by track, and get away with the essentials. However, that would only be part of their appeal. Although the Valdrin story is a traditional heroic tale, it is told in a nostalgic melodic black metal tome.

The easiest way to describe Valdrin musically is in singer and guitarist Carter Hicks’ own words: “When we apply our influences like this, it’s like if a melodic act like Sacramentum or Dissection had dark, dissonant parts like early Leviathan or Mütiilation. Or what if Mütiilation had cool synth sounds?” They embrace the fantastical elements of metal, from dual guitar harmonies to roaring solos, because they portray the heroic struggles hidden in hero’s journeys better than words ever could. Instead of describing victories and defeats, Valdrin portrays them. If you need a single track as proof, there’s “Golden Walls of Ausadjur” by Throne of the Moon Soul which, depending on the narrative, oscillates between proto-power metal and hellish black metal.

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This narrative is the Myth of Ausadjur. During our conversation, Hicks provided the Cliffnotes version, which currently spans four albums and could fill three books alone.

“The Ausadjur myth concerns a celestial spirit named Valdrin Ausadjur who is sent from the Ausadjur world to the Earth’s underworld known as Orcus to put down a rebellion of evil gods and balance the chaos and darkness that simmers in the underworld. The Ausadjur gods are the gods of balance in the universe who send their soldiers to the planets. Each planet has its own heaven and hell.

“At the start Beyond the forestValdrin enters the Underworld of Orcus during the End Times, when evil triumphs over good. He meets the overseer Nex Animus, who tells him that there is an uprising of evil gods who feed on the evil forces of humanity. Valdrin is sent on a journey to stop them and restore balance to the Underworld. It is later revealed that Nex planned to deceive an Ausadjur god who was supposed to arrive during the End Times. Due to Nex’s interference, Valdrin’s mission to put down the uprising fails and inadvertently helps bring about the end of the Earth.

“The next album, Two Carrion Talismansis a prequel to Beyond the forest and covers Nex Animus’ creation of Orcus and the Underworld, as well as his evil plot to deceive the Ausadjur entity that will come in the end times. His ultimate goal is to spread his evil throughout the universe and destroy all life as we know it. Image of nightmaresthe following record is a side story that shows Nex’s evil powers.

“When we arrive Throne of the Moon Soul, We pick up after Beyond the Forest. It is after Earth has been destroyed. Valdrin and the Canidae Horde, some of the souls he picked up during his mission, are taken in and celebrated by the Ausadjur, but he knows they failed in their mission to save Earth, so he wonders what is going on. Something is wrong at the celebration. Valdrin has a dream about Nex, saying he is still alive and has escaped Orcus. In the second half of the album, you meet the Mater Ausadjur, the mother of the Ausadjur world. Nex’s scheming leads to Valdrin killing the Mater and destroying the Ausadjur. Nex comes back from the Aenimus world, where he has now gone, and it begins to merge with the Ausadjur. This is what will bring about the events of the next Valdrin album. It will be the final conflict between the Ausadjur world and the Aenimus world, converging in a dystopian cityscape. Valdrin is once again possessed by Nex at the end of Throne. It’s up to the Canidae Horde or the Paladins of Ausadjur to save him.”

The scope of the Myth of Valdrin Ausadjur is beyond the scope of this article. Like any worthwhile fantasy story, it is best experienced for itself, not summarized. The musical elements create the mood and the world, allowing Hicks’ lyrics to take care of characters and plot. Word salads and technical jargon are not Valdrin’s style, and although the Myth of Ausadjur has a lot of its own terms (about which Hicks says, “If you use your own terms, it becomes more unique,” but more on that later), many of the lyrics are easily parsed. Valdrin’s lyrics hit the sweet spot between stylized and functional. Take these lines from Beyond the forestTitle song by:

“I am the spirit of the moon wolf

Trapped in the body of a mortal man

Waiting for my legacy to be revealed”

They are a microcosm of Hicks’ approach – short, tumultuous plots and characters that never overwhelm you with excess. They could only work with music, however, as they dispensed with most of the set design and window paintings, because Valdrin’s music is outstanding in that respect.

His penchant for transportive stories developed from his childhood interest in stop-motion animation and video games, planting a seed in his brain that would not germinate until he heard Bathory’s The return… Then it becomes clear why Valdrin owes so much to the 80s and 90s and the art that succeeded despite its limitations – the choppy movements of stop-motion animation, The return…‘s shoebox-like production and Cloud Strife’s boxy character model. Art that didn’t try to be anything other than what it was, so it must be accepted for what it is.

As Hicks puts it, “There’s always an element of black metal that’s a step back in time or has an affinity with something old. Whether it’s genuine or not… We like to have good recordings too, but we don’t want them to be too good. That’s why we think the GR-20 keeps it grounded. We want to sound nostalgic like the games we played or the Terminator 2 “The soundtrack is great.”

To tap into that nostalgia, Valdrin relies on the Roland GR-20, a guitar synthesizer from 1996 whose lo-fi sounds remind Hicks of games like Final Fantasy VII. It plays an essential role in Valdrin’s high fantasy world. Compare its ceremonial role in “Swords (In the Arsenal of Steel)” by Throne of the Moon Soula Valdrin-centric album about the hero’s return to his homeworld, to the B-movie horror evocations found on “Vesper in the Animus Lair” by Two Carrion Talismansa bookmark in Nex Animus’ plan to corrupt potential heroes and use them to achieve his goal of destroying all life.

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Shifting their focus between the title character and Nex Animus is not an easy change for Valdrin. They become a different band depending on which character they portray. Their output is split between two heroic records focusing on Valdrin Ausadjur, Beyond the forest And Throne of the Moon Souland two that revolve around the series’ antagonist, Nex Animus (these are Two Carrion Talismans And Image of nightmares). When Valdrin anchors the music, the group plays with their melodic and harmonic sensibilities, exploring cheeky expressions and elevating the classic rock hidden within metal. “We need that heroic pull in the simple sense that our melodic and, for lack of a better word, emotional elements match up with Valdrin’s heroic moments,” Hicks says.

In comparison, the music of Nex Animus is darker. He created an underworld to punish gods who had fallen out of favor, with machinations so heinous that Image of nightmares focuses on their performance rather than driving the Ausadjur story forward. Fittingly, Valdrin draws even more on their Dissection influence, twisting their guitar harmonies accordingly. They still play kickass metal, it’s just portrayed as as malevolent as a soul seeking to end all life. Through Nex, Hicks is able to indulge his love of horror, which eludes Valdrin’s exploits.

In a commentary reflecting how the Orcus Creator sneaks into the manipulation of the Mater Ausadjur, Throne of the Moon Soulssays Hicks, “We make albums about Nex because we think he’s just as interesting as Valdrin, and he comes through the guitar and my head in a way that I can’t deny.”

Hicks isn’t shy about using tropes in mythology. He knows he’s telling a classic hero story and that he’s not upending or subverting what he’s working with. His story, like all other stories of this kind, is about facing adversity and overcoming the darkness within yourself. It just so happens that Valdrin’s inner darkness comes from an evil god who is trying to wipe out the entire universe, and that if he fails, planets will be destroyed. The Valdrin story is extensive, and the stakes are high. Valdrin’s status as a hero can certainly be questioned, because “he’s a destructive character. He essentially destroyed humanity. He destroyed the underworld of Orcus and his homeland. And that’s what’s interesting about Valdrin as a character. In the context of a hero, he fails so often.”

While Hicks doesn’t intend to impose himself on the character Valdirn, it’s impossible not to. When he talks about the mythos and is asked hypothetical questions, such as whether Nex Animus is behind the character development of Mater Ausadjer, he enthusiastically discusses all the possibilities without giving anything away. He touches on possible futures and the shape of the story in upcoming releases. He revels in Nex’s seething hatred of life. There’s an appreciation and joy in creating artwork that grapples with hypotheses and quandaries that we’re not capable of in real life. Valdrin’s true hero status comes from serving as a vessel for Hicks to freely express himself. “These are avatar characters. I feel like the real me is in this story, more than is the case at work or in real life. It’s not that I’m evil or a hero, but I’m expressing a true part of my personality. If I do it honestly, the right people will respond.”

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Throne of the Moon Soul is available via Blood Harvest Records.