PARADISE LOST Guitarist's VALLENFYRE Performs Live For First Time (Video)

VALLENFYRE — the new U.K. death metal band featuring Gregor Mackintosh, songwriter and guitarist of PARADISE LOST, alongside members of MY DYING BRIDE, AT THE GATES and DOOM — made its live debut last night (Thursday, February 2) at Tavastia in Helsinki, Finland.

Fan-filmed video footage of the concert can be seen below.

Commented Gregor: "I have a long and happy history with Helsinki. From the Lepakko club 20 years ago, right up to the present day, it has always been one of my favorite places to be. I have many fond memories and have made many great friends over the years. It is for this reason I decided that the very first live performance by my new band VALLENFYRE should be in Helsinki."

VALLENFYRE is:

* Gregor Mackintosh (PARADISE LOST) - Vocals and Lead Guitar
* Hamish Glencross (MY DYING BRIDE) - Rhythm and Lead Guitar
* Mully - Rhythm Guitar
* Scoot (DOOM, EXTINCTION OF MANKIND) - Bass
* Adrian Erlandsson (AT THE GATES, PARADISE LOST) - Drums

VALLENFYRE's debut album, "A Fragile King", was released on October 31, 2011 in Europe and on November 1 in North America via Century Media Records. The effort is available as a CD, limited digipack (including bonus track) and 180-gram vinyl LP (including a bonus track and a poster). The vinyl is limited to:

* 200 copies on clear vinyl
* 100 copies on gold/black marbled vinyl
* black vinyl is not limited

"A Fragile King" track listing:

01. All Will Suffer
02. Desecration
03. Ravenous Whore
04. Cathedrals Of Dread
05. As The World Collapses
06. A Thousand Martyrs
07. Seeds
08. Humanity Wept
09. My Black Siberia
10. The Divine Have Fled
11. The Grim Irony
12. Majesty Dethroned (digipack bonus track)

The sound of VALLENFYRE goes back to Gregor's youth.

"I was first introduced to more extreme music by my older brother in 1981." Gregor says. "Over the next few years in my early teens, I grew to love various early hardcore punk bands like DISCHARGE, ENGLISH DOGS, CONFLICT, etc. Around a similar time I was becoming aware of other more metal music like MOTÖRHEAD and BLACK SABBATH. In '84/85' I got into bands who were fusing these styles like HELLHAMMER, ANTISECT and AMEBIX. A couple of years later I started tape-trading with people all around the world, which enabled me to hear lots of really cool, interesting, extreme music. AUTOPSY, NAPALM DEATH, MORBID ANGEL, REPULSION, NIHILIST are some of the more well-known names I started to get into, but there were many, many more which never gained the same notoriety. At the same time, I formed PARADISE LOST with my friends. Our early stuff was a bit of a mixture of all this stuff but we also had a lot of doom influence from the likes of CANDLEMASS, TROUBLE and ST. VITUS."

The events that led to the conception and formation of VALLENFYRE are not particularly happy or pretty ones.

"In the late summer of 2009, my father, John Mackintosh, was diagnosed with prostate cancer," Gregor explained. "Later in the autumn as his treatment progressed, PARADISE LOST embarked on their European tour to support the latest album ['Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us']. A week into this, I received a call from my mother telling me that the doctors had found cancer in his lungs and it was terminal. He only had weeks to live. I made the decision to leave the tour, leaving my very able guitar tech Milly [not be confused with VALLENFYRE's Mully] to take my place. I went and stayed with my parents for the next few weeks. After a very sad and painful time, he passed away on the 2nd December early in the morning. Over the next few weeks I experienced all the famous stages of grief. It started to become very self-destructive so I decided to channel it into creating something. To pay respects to the man that drove us to our very first gigs because none of us could drive. The only dad I knew that listened to BOLT THROWER's 'Peel Sessions' on the radio. The guy who gave me my first chord book. I decided that I was going to go right back to the beginning. To my roots in death, crust and doom. It all started very angst ridden. This wasn't originally meant for anyone else to hear. It was a release. After recording some material, I realized that I was actually enjoying doing this but I wanted friends involved so it could actually become real fun."

Added Gregor: "The album is called 'A Fragile King', which is a reference to my father's battle with cancer. The lyrics are predominantly about the same thing, but also include gripes with society, religion, politics and relationships as well. It's all pretty grim."