Customer Reviews

Into the Valley of the Death

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I saw Death by Stereo live, I think that they are one of the more intense bands I saw on stage! And Into the valley of death is also a real crude, brutal and intense album! The guitars are sounding like evil, the drums are fats, furious and amazing(Live, the drummer broke 2 snare drums during the DBS set!) and the screamed sobmophoric lyrics are also really intense! Highly recommanded!

I've owned Death By Stereo's "Day of the Death" cd for a while and listened to it a few times. I was never terribly impressed with them on that disc, as to me they seemed just average...there were worse bands, but there was many better also.

On this cd they've REALLY stepped it up. They almost remind me of Avenged Sevenfold, the way they pull off and mix so many cool elemnts and styles into their music here. You've got choir chants, guitar effects, and much more coolness mixed in with what they had going on before, which adds so much. This is one of the few cases were a band "maturing" has actually made them better in my mind. Also, listen to the beginning of song 12 for some cool Misfits sounding "GO's", and then during that same song the backing vocals sound very AFI-ish. They're really expanding their sound, and I love it.

The hardcore backbone of their music hasnt changed much fortunatly. The guitarist's do some very cool solo's on this cd, which wasnt very common before, and all their riffs sound great. The drumming and bass are both better than most bands can claim. And then of course you have the vocals. Some people laugh at Efram Schulz when they hear this cd, but I think he's freakin awesome. I know switching from growling to singing and back again is pretty much standard now, but this guy does it very well. He's probably one of the most recognizable voices in hardcore, he grew on me very quickly and is now easily one of my favorite vocalists. Give him a chance, and if anyone tells you he sounds goofy kick 'em in the balls.

All in all, this is a very solid cd. If you like rock or hard music at all, you will probably enjoy this...and if you're into hardcore then you should already have this.

This album is simply incredible. i read the review below saying that dbs has bad lyrics, thats stupid.

Stand like god with your authority
A bank account is what shows you're better than me
Ruin lives just to get to the top
Money is worthless when everything's gone
those are great lyrics. anyways the songs on the cd, everyone is great, the best are the plague, beyond the blinders, shhh...., let down and alone. but every song on this cd is seriously a 10 and i can listen to it 100 times over!

This disc is a stunner, and SMOKES from beginning to end. Period. If you could imagine Bad Religion spending four years at Berkelee they might sound something like this. Barely clocking in at around 40 minutes, the utter intensity still straddles the line from cathartic to draining. Vocalist Efraim Schultz is actually the only element that's really almost traditional hardcore, while the rest of the band, led by the eloquent riffing of Dan Palmer, whips up a technical thrash feast more suitable for Watchtower or Atheist records than a SoCal hardcore band on Epitaph. Despite the heartfelt, but more traditionally corny punk lyrics, the combination is strangely intoxicating and energetic. It just works. Lead single "Wasted Words" really caught my attention, with some downright gorgeous melodic guitar interludes sandwiched between lockstep thrash. "Unstoppable" is the closest thing to a slow tune you will find here, and this song about loss is a real nice change of pace. Some of the other production flourishes are interesting, too, such as the almost choir-like vocal interludes on "Let Down and Alone". (It should be mentioned that this is self-produced by bassist/engineer Paul Miner, and sounds absolutely GREAT - if nothing else the guy will have a career producing metal bands for a long time to come.) Schultz's occasionally bordering-on-Patton cartoonish delivery and sneering song titles ("I Wouldn't Piss In Your Ear If Your Brain Was On Fire") maintain a healthy sense of levity, but otherwise, its a lesson in fist-pumping, face-punching, bone-breaking brutality from start to finish. When Shultz screams "This world is vile..." from "These are a Few of My Favorite Things" the words strike you with more venom than a king cobra. You will believe him.

This album is genius. It reflects on what life is really like, and is brutally honest. "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things" is my personal anthem, and "Unstoppable" lets you feel all of the pain that the songwriter is feeling. Anybody in the universe who doesn't own this CD should go out and buy it immediately (including me)!

Awesome! Death for Life! The band kept saying that this CD was going to be soooo different from thier other two and I got scared that it would be one of those "we're going to do something different" things and then wind up being terrible. But this cd is awesome. A good good good cd to follow Day of the Death. It's awesome. If you like hardcore or the other Death by Stereo albums, you definitely have to get this one.

OK. I'm still catching my breath from listening to this album. Really, if I could give it more than five stars, I would. Death By Stereo has no equal, and this record just lends EVEN MORE proof to that idea. Into the Valley of the Death means one thing- a purely amazing display of the possibilities of music. From start to finish, this album ROCKS. Hell, even the song titles are entertaining. Anyways, if you're going to buy any new CD in the next ten years- BUY THIS. D.B.S. cannot be beaten...and their live shows are even better. DEATH FOR LIFE.

This is the worst CD I own from the year 2003. I'm glad I got this as a gift cause it definately wasn't worth my money. I saw them live at pittsburgh with thursday and they were rwally awesome, but this CD is so repetative and boring. The music is amazing and the lyrics aren't too bad, but the vocals are horrible. He sounds like system of a down on acid.

This is BY FAR their best release and easily one of the best CDs ever made! You MUST own this CD!! Basically take punk, metal, and hardcore, throw them in a blender, and hit "frappe"! This is an outstanding album full over superhuman technical prowess and incredible musicianship. If you don't like this, you deserve to have your ears ripped out of your head in shame!!

Man, I just heard Unstoppable off of a Punk O Rama
collection and I'm very impressed! These guys remind me
of an early Jam mixed with a later Damned, but American not British! These guys rock, I'm so tired of freakin Green Day, about the only edgy rock being pushed now, this stuff is so much better! I'm gettin me all their cd's cause these guys are great to listen to, and I'm a geezer of 41 (big Fear, Black Flag, Jam fan), I'm gonna tell my son whose 16 to check these guys out!