The Popstream's Underrated '08: Valient Thorr  Categories: The
Popstream  I first heard of Valient Thorr back in 2006, when
they opened for Gogol Bordello at First Avenue. And to say that
I had expected a likely opening band for everyone's favorite
gypsy punks to be a quintet of biker'd out thrash-rockers would
be a pretty big lie. But what the hell, I enjoyed their set
anyways, and shortly after snagging a copy of their 2005 album
Total Universe Man I filed 'em away under "to be further
investigated later" -- it's not every day you run across a band
that so neatly synthesizes what's great about both the MC5 circa
1968 (enthusiastically-yelled sloganeering) and Metallica circa
1983 (crazy fast guitars). On top of that, they have the
greatest band mythos since Parliament introduced Sir Nose
D'voidoffunk to the world. Says Wikipedia: "The band landed
their spaceship in North Carolina in 1957. They then left this
time stream and came back to it (20 years later), having never
returned to the same time stream more