Well, by the broken bells of hell. Total darkness trickles down South from the Northern frozen landscape. RMR barely starts the year, and the Polish band Varmia hits us with their newest slightly pagan-esque EP Prolog. Time will tell if ’23 will again turn out to be a malevolent year like the last one. But this band launches us to a good start.
First and foremost, Prolog hits you with a strange mix of the lost dregs of (very) early Enslaved, Bathory on a sunny day, and the unhinged rage of early Myrkur. This goes together with a combination of Heilung and Wardruna, once the record veers off onto Pagan grounds.
Now, all that insane name-calling tells ye that Varmia here didn’t invent a new genre. Far from it. And that’s a good thing, by the way. Because the crafty mix of all those moving parts, plus the use of archaic instruments like the goat horn and the tagelharpa, really talked to our cold blackened souls. Neolithic sounds brought forward to modern times with harsh, grimy, downturned vibes, and rough-hewn rasps and hollers. Well done indeed.
Varmia states that Prolog here solely exists to whet our appetite for a full-length record due out this summer. Well, if that’s the case, the teaser just accomplished its mission.
Now, where’s that new record?
Label: M-Theory Audio | Web: Facebook (band)
Release Date: 6 January 2022