Smart Bets: Valravne

“There’s no better time to be making weird, loud, chaotic noise than while the world is burning and everyone is at home with nothing better to do than to check it out.” Thus speaketh Valravne, a solo black metal project based in Asheville whose self-titled debut was released on March 19, just as music venues were closing and touring artists were returning home from the road. While the anonymous one-man band’s roots are in punk rock with a tangent into country music, he’d always enjoyed metal but rarely played it until a battle with depression in late 2018 and early 2019 left him “utterly obsessed with black metal in particular.” The resulting album was entirely self-made, written and recorded at his in-house Clean Sheets Studios. Penultimate track “Nero,” which Valravne describes as “somewhat about, or at minimum inspired by, the experience of watching the world and still playing music,” feels especially relevant in the current musical landscape. valravne.bandcamp.com. Album cover designed by Hanna Kimmel