Description

Valley Of The Dolls were originally only released on cassette in Poland back in 1994. This is the first cd release of the cassette and it was made in 2009 and comes with a new cover artwork and a bonus media file

There must have been something truly weird in the water in Poland in the early 90s; that’s the only thing that seems to explain their rather strange style of doom/death from that period of time. While the Peaceville groups were busy going further and further into goth territory and Finland was starting to cook up the first few stirrings of funeral doom, Polish bands like Cryptic Tales were expanding upon the sound of “As the Flower Withers” and making albums which even now sound incredibly distant from the rest of the metal scene. “Valley of the Dolls” is without a doubt one of the strangest and most interesting oldschool doom/death records I’ve ever heard, and it should be occupying the space in many collections that people are otherwise cluttering with late Katatonia. I can assure you that you’ve never heard anything like this before. What this sounds like: “As the Flower Withers,” “The Haunting” by Sear Bliss, ’70s prog rock, and early/mid-’90s alt rock. The majority of this music is based off the bleak, only occasionally romantic style of the earliest Peaceville material, but there’s a more archaic, fantastical sense to it that brings to mind Sear Bliss. The tracks tend to be slow and ornate, like more modern doom bands such as Darkflight, with long melodic fragments etching out in lead guitar or flute (both of which remind one of ’70s prog for more reasons than a simple Jethro Tull reference,) never quite letting the music settle down completely into its own mood. Again like “As the Flower Withers,” Cryptic Tales seems to savor a mild sort of musical discomfort where nothing ever fully resolves itself; in short the music asks more questions than it answers most of the time. There are occasional uptempo moments which point to a thrash lineage for this band, like the opening moments of “Whispers in the Dark,” but these are as impromptu and ultimately meaningless as the most extreme parts of early My Dying Bride. It’s clear that the band’s strengths lie in their immensely detailed doom passages, with tracks like “Koukounaries” really coming alive with the sheer amount of perplexing, distant, and beautiful instrumental detail they manage to pack in. The development of melodic themes is slow and patient, never appearing rushed along by a lack of attention span, but rather dwelling in sort of a pool of its own atmosphere; “Valley of the Dolls” sounds like sitting alone in an ancient banquet hall of some sort and listening to the ghosts of a great feasting celebration dance around you. It’s a fascinating little record and I only wish it was a little longer. This is certainly not for everyone, and even for me is a piece that depends on my mood to make its presence really felt, but I think anyone with a love for the unusual and different in extreme music would find it a good record to at least try out. There’s certainly nothing like it out there, and there probably won’t ever be in the future, so give this strange footnote of doom/death a try and see for yourself what it’s like.

Track listing:
1. Whispers In The Dark
2. Samsara
3. Koukounaries
4. Name
5. Dials Fuga
6. Valley Of The Dolls
7. Suggestive Of Children
8. Live At Sthrashydlo 94-media file