The Album “Valkyrie”: Space Without Boundaries.
Space without borders.
The music reached its climax — thousands of sparks danced in the air, leaving a trace in the eyes. For a second, I stopped hearing it — only the noise of the hall, like wind in the stage’s metal trusses. Clara and I stood at the edge of the podium, holding hands, while the orchestra behind us still held the final note. The sky showered us with stardust, and every spark seemed like an embodiment of this music.
Clara’s dress sparkled, giving its light to the audience. It had slept in the darkness of a closet for too long. Clara had changed it almost imperceptibly — reduced the stones, removed part of the internal frame. Now the fabric breathed and moved with the music. Hundreds of faceted crystals caught the spotlights and threw them back into the roaring hall in cold, sharp beams. Against the backdrop of massive black steel trusses, Clara in this dress looked like a living shard of the quartz abyss of the Iron Cathedral. Fragile at first glance, she, like those giant underground resonators, was capable of refracting colossal energy through herself.
Back then, in the workshop, under the cold lamp, it had seemed too heavy for the stage. Now, the stage had finally become heavy enough for it — as if the music had finally found a space where this light could sound.
Vector of Ascent.
“Valkyrie” was not born as a concept. It arose as the sensation of wind at an altitude — the very wind that does not press, but tests. This music differs from conventional symphonic metal. It contains no decorative orchestral background. No lush theatricality for the sake of effect. Here, orchestral elements are not a decoration, but a space. They do not envelop; they open up.
The sound is built differently: not from density to climax, but from silence to a flash. Every composition is like an ascent. Every finale is like reaching the ridge. Metallherz is not a genre or a style. It is a state. It is an attempt to connect power and silence, height and depth, metal and breath. We do not play “with” metal. We play through it.
In “Valkyrie, ” the voice is not just a melody. It is a direction. Clara opens and closes the space of the album. Hans leads it. His timbre is low, coarse, with that internal rasp that isn’t about aggression, but about life lived. His voice sounds like a step on a metal staircase where every flight has already been tested for strength. Occasionally, Jürgen and Konrad join in — adding to the volume of the space. My role was that of a binder. I hold the line when the music begins to swirl in the wind.
But Clara is the Queen of this music! Clara is the air. She is not opposed to the heaviness — she rises through it. There is no operatic demonstrativeness in her voice. It is transparent, almost luminous, yet there is power in this light. She sings as if she already sees the horizon toward which the others are only walking. Their duet with Hans in the title track is the quintessence of our sound. When his muffled growl, like the grinding of basalt, lies at the base of the riff, Clara’s voice pushes off this granitic firmness and ascends into the stratosphere. Earth and Air. Blacksmith and Jeweler. Power and Beauty. They don’t need to outshout each other because they exist in parallel dimensions.
A Single Monolith.
When people started calling our music symphonic rock, I felt a slight misunderstanding every time. We never tried to play symphonic metal. Symphonic metal is often built on contrast: heavy riffs against an airy soprano, orchestra against guitars. In “Valkyrie, ” there is no struggle. There is no “against” here. Everything sounds in one direction.
When Hans brings down his strike, the strings do not hide behind this wall of sound — they soar on its crest. My guitar does not cut the throats of the cellos; it weaves into their low hum, turning into a single, vibrating monolith. We did not layer academic classics over industrial like a pretty wrapper. We forced the orchestra to become part of our mechanism.
Orchestral layers do not compete with guitars. They create the sensation of height. Drums do not fill the space — they set the impulse of movement. Guitars do not press — they cut through. The music does not strive to be epic. It simply becomes epic when it reaches its point.
Point of Balance.
The composition “Sternenstaub in der Seele” (Stardust in the Soul) closed the album. It sounded almost like an anthem: a broad melody, powerful vocals, a sense of light after a long road. And yet, it seems to stand out from the entire musical line.
There is much movement in “Valkyrie” — the wind of the heights, the metal of the road, the tension of the guitars. But this song is not about power. It is about balance. It was based on Lena Leary’s poem “No Better Than You.” Like all the texts in the album Inspirïert von Lena Leary, it passed through the music and changed — the rhythm of the song demands a different structure, different accents. But the meaning remained almost untouched.
Perhaps that is why it stands at the very end of “Valkyrie.” Not as a finale — but as a calm conclusion to the whole story. Sometimes height is needed only to understand: we are all woven from the same material. From the same light. From the same mistakes. And, perhaps, from the same stardust. And for some reason, that makes the world better.
The orchestra fell silent. The final vibrations of the strings still held in the air. I looked at the hall and realized: everything that happened to us — the Cathedral, the road, the wind of the heights — all of it somehow ended up inside this music. Perhaps that is why it is called “Valkyrie.” Not because there is power in it. But because it elevates.
(from the notes of Viktor Stahl)
Listen to the song Sternenstaub in der Seele / Metallherz, read the lyrics and translation. Album “Inspirïert von Lena Liri” vol. 2 Valkyrie.