ALBUM REVIEW: A Passage For Lost Years – Varaha
More often than not, we listen to music to allow us to feel a certain way. With something erratic and thrashy, we want to feel the chaos. With prog, we want to be blown away. For those who want to just feel, and connect with a level of melancholy or hope that goes beyond a surface. With that in mind, Chicago post metal band VARAHA release their debut record, A Passage For Lost Years. An album interlaced with atmospheric doom, as well as an integration of classical elements into their music, what exactly can VARAHA bring to the table?
Severance rushes in with an ambient voice, overlapped with atmospheric, crashing guitars. This is very much a journey of its own, as it takes you from beautiful sweetness, to stark and haunting places. The vocals lend themselves as a contrast to the generally peaceful reverberation of the guitars, and the calming melodies of the instrumental sections. When both vocals and instruments marry together, the giant wall of emotional playing comes to full force. Equally, the dynamics on the drums are solid, balancing between the big attention-grabbing moments and more subdued, grounded sections. The mountainous highs and gentle lows of this particular track are an instant soundtrack for the moments you might find yourself feeling a little lost.
Quite similarly, The Midnight Oath begins with haunting drones beneath the gorgeous string arrangement. It’s an astounding section of music, where the more classical side of the band’s sensibilities are anchored by their emotional input. For a band in their debut, this is already heading towards great things. From here, everything blends seamlessly into Climax & Exile, another tempered but highly evocative track. Haunting vocals, in both clean and more growled tones, are effective against this post-metal sound. There’s a weight that is hard to describe to VARAHA, that lies in their dynamics more than anything, the ability to find the perfect moment to pause, the right time to bring in the more aggression and how best to tread the line between post-metal and doom.
A soft start, with ethereal melodies and curious ambient sound inserts a feeling of familiarity and warmth, a haze of comfort, My World And Yours is a gentle journey awash with reverberation and delay. The rhythms lightly build over time, and before you know it, another wave of huge emotional sound crashes down. A solid harmony of guitars brings a sweet hark back to more traditional metal stylings, all while pushing further into the fresh new era of soulful playing.
Disbelief is a flicker of time in the span of this album, but it’s potentially one of the most incredible tracks VARAHA have produced. The warming tones of the orchestra, the movements between stark futuristic melancholy and ancient, deep emotion is superb. As well as a stunning track all on its own, Disbelief also acts as the introduction for next track, Refrained. Building on what the previous track set up, the core band begins to weave a new texture into the tapestry of sound. The ideas are all in the same vein as it’s starting point, along the way, things become more colossal, but also retreats back, if only to rebuild itself once more anew. Like a stream running into the sea, Refrained is a much bigger and more powerful beast when it ends than what it started as.
At That Instant is potentially the darkest, starkest intro on this album. Almost silent but for sounds of find and the outside world, with flickers of inhuman tension and ambience that rise into another classically influenced body of work. This track inter-titular is a great example of how the lingering drones of an orchestra and the silent spaces between can be used to create an astonishing, expressive resonance that impresses just as much as the projection of the whole piece.
Penultimately, we come to titular track, A Passage for Lost Years. Leaning harder into the more atmospheric doom side of their sensibilities, the hooks are meatier and the drums tighter, while the vocals really lift the hairs on your arms. The sway back into the less hostile sounds are more apparent when they land, and with that greater contrast comes greater reward. These longer tracks, with this coming in at almost thirteen moments, allows VARAHA to expand their sound and the textures they can achieve.
Finishing on Irreparable, this feels like the most expansive combination of the band and their classical counterparts, with the vocals, orchestra and band mates all working in total unison, not one above the other but as a seamless unit. Melancholy and heartfelt, its moments of abstraction become motifs, and with that allow for a continued exploration of a theme. It’s breath taking to the point of not really being a simple musical experience, but a very personal connection with what VARAHA are saying directly as a collective.
Hugely dynamic and weighty, VARAHA tread the line of post metal and doom with exceptional skill. For those immersed in the world of A Passage For Lost Years, you’ll undoubtedly be overcome by the prowess and talent of both the core band, and their insightful use of orchestral to heighten their vision. A record of real beauty, VARAHA understands the use of dynamics to creating impactful moments in the full body of everything you have to offer, and be just as affecting in the lingering notes.
Rating: 8/10
A Passage for Lost Years is out now via Prosthetic Records.
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