VALIENT THORR Talks Gear With PREMIER GUITAR

Premier Guitar's Jordan Wagner is conducted an interview with guitarists Eidan Thorr and Sadat Thorr of Chapel Hill, North Carolina rockers VALIENT THORR on May 18, 2010 in Madison, Wisconsin. In the four-minute segment which can be viewed below, Eidan and Sadat walk Premier Guitar through their rigs, which include Marshall JCM800 50-watt heads and Mesa Boogie 4x12 cabs loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s. The few pedals they use are an Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer, Electro-Harmonix POG, and a Custom Audio Electronics Boost/Overdrive.

VALIENT THORR will release its fifth album, "Stranger", on September 14 via long-time co-conspirators, Volcom Entertainment. The CD was produced, recorded and mixed by Jack Endino (NIRVANA, MUDHONEY, DWARVES, HIGH ON FIRE, TOXIC HOLOCAUST, and VALIENT THORR's prior album, "Immortalizer") at the Soundhouse Recording studios in Seattle, Washington. The first single off the album, "Doublecrossed", can be downloaded here.

"Doublecrossed" audio stream:

"Stranger" is VALIENT THORR's fifth album in seven years — a considerable feat since the band has been averaging close to 250 shows a year for most of this time with acts as varied as MOTÖRHEAD, JOAN JETT AND THE BLACK HEARTS, EAGLES OF DEATH METAL, MASTODON, BARONESS, GOGOL BORDELLO, FU MANCHU, EARLY MAN and SKELETONWITCH.

If one were to imagine hearing a palpable buzz so engaging that it has its own gravitational pull, something so strong that as one is pulled closer, the buzz becomes a throb that seemingly doubles over on itself into infinity. This is the furious sound of VALIENT THORR, a band whose entire being is founded and powered on the force of one huge, mass, communal headbang that has the power to deliver a unifying moment of clarity. To get right down to it, "Stranger" fuses together the roots-rock, no-bullshit beginnings of "Stranded on Earth" and "Total Universe Man" with the laser-guided immediacy of "Legend Of The World" and the total metal shredding of "Immortalizer" into one supernova burst.

Touring relentlessly since 2001 after crash-landing in the North Carolina Triangle area, a place the band now calls home, VALIENT THORR has this year already criss-crossed the U.S. on the Volcom Tour with MASTODON, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME and BARONESS and is currently in the midst of a European tour that will keep them abroad through the end of July, before returning Stateside for a massive U.S. headline tour set to kick off in September.