Having a heavy metal band and getting some recording and notoriety is already hard enough, but doing this from the countryside of Russia may be even harder. Russia does not like metal anymore as it used to. I am talking about the Russian government and not the Russian people. Therefore, any effort to put an heavy metal album together from there, should be appreciated. I can remember heavy metal bands from many countries. Japan, Brazil, Germany, India, the Nordic countries, and even Mongolia (You should check the band THE HU). Can you tell me any name of any metal band from Russia? I remember a long time ago a band called ARIA from there but I never heard anything from them and those were the good Gorbachev years.

The name of this band is VARVAR, which  means barbarian, and the band was founded back in 1986 on the ashes of hard-rock band PYRAMIDA, in a small town in the western part of Russia called Velikie Luki. After many member changes and a big hiatus, the band tries to pop their head out of the crowd again with their recent work The Bestial Abyss Will Kill You, a 9 tune release with some heavy songs and a few sprinkles of Orthoodox Christianity. The tunes are in Russian, so do not expect lyrics interpretations from me. We start with “Mercy” and we can see that it is good quality heavy metal with raspy vocals and plenty of attitude. The Russian language is interesting to hear with this kind of output. It matches heavy music perfectly (don’t they all?).

We follow with “Hellish Slumber” (is Google translating this?). This is a kind of an epic ballad and is not very good at it. I understand that the Russian culture is different from anything you have seen and that many “romantic” singers in Russia have a deep, dark and raspy voice, but I believe it sounds a little strange for western ears in a metal ballad. The next one is “In The Beast Claws” and is another good effort from the guys. The song structure is a little confusing but the spirit is there. The vocal of Anatolij Stepanov is unique and matches a heavier output better. The next one is “Prisoner”, another heavy one and this time we are entering a faster tempo kind of metal. It has a good riff from bass player Alexandr Xenofontov. The riffs are creative and you have the unmissable crudeness of the recording giving total garage band vibes. A good and somber guitar riff starts “Rostyslav Dikiy” ( I have no idea of the meaning) and that is what it is. A short guitar interlude dividing the album.

We reach “The Lee of Sodomy on the Neck of Russia” (Jesus! What a title!) This is my favorite so far. With a good performance and some double bass madness from drummer Igor Andreev, the song has good energy and a nice melody line performed with an unique vocal style. Here we go with “This World” and it is another good riff from guitar player and the head of this project Alexandr Efimov. He surely shows creative ideas for riffs and has good solos in every song and this one is no different. One reaction that I have with every tune on this release is a discreet smile on my face due to the uniqueness of the vocal performance and language. They even added a somber church coral in the mix on this one.

We get close to the end with a recent theme all over the news for decades “War for Jerusalem” is the title of this one and it is slower tempo heavy kind of  metal with a lot of guitar chug chugs and I wish I could understand the lyrics as I wanted to know how the band approached the issue. We end our journey in the Russian prairies with “Betrayed by Their Fathers and Betrayers of Their Children” ( Wow!). This tune has the most familiar metal melodic structure for me and great energy as usual. A good effort from the guys in Russia and deserve my respect. It is very hard to get any more information from this band on social media or on the net in general. No youtube videos or websites or record labels and this shows that this work was made the DIY way. I do hope they do have a great future and we are able to hear more from them  and from other Russian metal bands.