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Walhalla are a relatively old Finnish black/thrash act that formed back in 1996, released their debut Firereich to little fanfare in 2000, called it quits in 2001, reunited in 2019, and, er, released this bad boy, Release the Beast, earlier this year. Straightforward black/thrash is the name of the game here, with plenty of Sodom/Kreator-fueled aggression to the songwriting and riffs along with some brief, borderline spontaneous solos and the vocals of Jari "Count Penetrator" Hurskainen (hell of a stage name there), which are rather one-note in regards to tone, but at least have a bit more conviction to them than some of his other performances in bands like Demonztrator and The Scourger. The drum work is also pretty solid, here mostly written by former drummer Agathon (Gloomy Grim) before his untimely passing and performed/finished by Janne "Suntrio" Ojala. That latter point makes me feel a bit bad for calling this generic, but it really is, as it does nothing you haven't heard and typically doesn't do it as well as many others have. That said, any band that can make something as strong and unorthodox as the jaw-dropping album closer "Goat for Kirill" is a band worth keeping an eye on, and this does its job well enough that anyone looking for more tried and true black/thrash can do a lot worse than this.