The ballsy Mammoth, Lakes California trio Valdur play blistering blackened punk/war metal (featuring a Norwegian-born vocalist named Thor). They aren't crusty like Bone Awl. It's a close-cropped brutal death-inflected BM sound: Think of the recent recordings of Philadelphia's (great black hope) woe captured during a Western blizzard and with a more straightforward/traditional, less twisting/mathy/post-black forward push. Which isn't to say ...