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I have some objections for this one. It's raw indeed, but the melodies are few to nonexistent. I'm sorry, but you can't play POWER metal (with or without an epic edge) only with raw, crunchy guitars and a guy who roars all the time. I mean, you can also stay brutal without necessarily reducing all the melodic parts of your music to nothing. Examples? Pheeew, too many: Jag Panzer, Satan's Host, Savage Grace, Manilla Road etc. Anyway, back to another minus of Varvar: the singer. He sings the same way from the first song until the last one. Whenever he tries to sound more melodious he's simply awful. Like if Lemmy wants to sing a ballad, something like that. Then the only resemblance to Adramelch is that prima sound of the guitars, nothing more nothing less. No similarities at all as far as the songwriting goes. The best moment of the album is definately the first song with its epic choirs(the only truly epic moment in the whole album) and its melodic leads. If the other songs continued this way, then, yes, the album could be miles above average. So, i guess Varvar should have done one of the two following things instead: Either add more melody to their music and find a more suitable and expressive singer or they should have raised the speed, kept that singer and play a style that would lean more towards brutal thrash. I believe that they would sound much much better than their fellow men Korrosia Metala if they had chosen the second option. In conclusion, i believe that Varvar were Metal, had some good ideas and their own view of what is power metal, but sadly all of these things were lost in the unjustifiable harshness of their music. Oh, and two thumbs up for the lyric content of the album.

"ONLY with raw, crunchy guitars and a guy who roars all the time."? Nah, there's a lot more to VARVAR than that. Sure, it's their most prominent features at first listening, but I find their songwriting very epic and intricate (Zakljuchonny is an amazing example).

"Like if Lemmy wants to sing a ballad" I agree with, but I think it works. Take a few extra listens to Vozhdi Vavilona V Beshenstve and Vojna Za Ierusalim - beautiful melodies even with a voice like his. It's the uliklely combination of the harshness and melody that makes them so special. Sure it would be a different album if Harry Conklin had done the vocals, but it wouldn't have been VARVAR! I guess you'll have to have a bad case of Russian Metal-fetich to fully appreciate them.

I just believe that Varvar's particular combination of melody and rawness doesn't work. As i have already stated, they would have been better either if they added more melody and changed their singer or if they sped it up a little bit. In no case it's not an avoid-at-all-cost album, but it could have been much better as Varvar certainly had the potential.

The VARVAR LP is some of the best stuff I've heard from Russia, total killer. There's not a bad riff on the whole album. Epic, thrashy, depressive - what an apocalyptic atmosphere it has. The vocals are great in my opinion.

Still trying to find this, actually.

Helm wrote:Still trying to find this, actually.

Same here, if you're referring to the original LP. But I doubt it will be possible? 500 fucking LP's pressed in a gigantic country with over 200 million people, uh... I'm still surprised anyone outside Russia has it! Anyone more than DaN has it here? Anyway, if you haven't heard the songs from the LP so far, you can download all of them here:

http://www.holy-warwar.narod.ru/

(right-click on the song lengths and save as...)

Metalipeiklo wrote:

Helm wrote:Still trying to find this, actually.

Same here, if you're referring to the original LP. But I doubt it will be possible? 500 fucking LP's pressed in a gigantic country with over 200 million people, uh... I'm still surprised anyone outside Russia has it! Anyone more than DaN has it here? Anyway, if you haven't heard the songs from the LP so far, you can download all of them here:

http://www.holy-warwar.narod.ru/

(right-click on the song lengths and save as...)

Joel, but aren't these a new recordings. At least titles are different ...

Yeah I was talking about mp3s, I don't hunt vinyl personally. Getting these tracks, I'm curious.

I've listened to the first 3 songs from the link above and I have to say this is some of the most immediately striking heavy metal I've heard in a while. 100% riff perfection, the singer makes everything sound urgent and important, voice half-melodic half-savage. If the rest of the album is as amazing I think I've just found a new favourite.

So is this the record Dan reviewed or is it new material?

Helm wrote: So is this the record Dan reviewed or is it new material?

Yes i wondered also too.Because the song titles are different.

Noisenik wrote: Joel, but aren't these a new recordings. At least titles are different ...

It seems the songs on holy-warwar.narod.ru ARE the songs from the "Zverinaja..." LP, but with changed titles. At least according to what master DaN says in this thread (I guess he's one of the few who can actually compare the songs with the original LP, hehe):

http://www.thecorroseum.com/phpbb2/view ... 0&start=15

I don't know why. Someone in the band has probably remastered the LP and re-released the album on the net.

Strange are these orthodox church links from the (HOLY) VARVAR page... really strange band. No one on the metalrus.ru forum seems to know shit about them (I started a thread there asking about them and Destrozer had done so before me).

Wonder if the band is still around or if these mp3's simply are some sounds from beyond the VARVAR grave.

Edit: Hail VARVAR!

This whole record is pretty fucking awesome. The cover in that mp3 page is pretty hilarious, though. I guess holy avenger do not approve of this talk of evolution!!

So even the tracklist is the same. I mean the first track on Zverinaja ... is the first track on renamed album or there was some shuffle?

Noisenik wrote:So even the tracklist is the same. I mean the first track on Zverinaja ... is the first track on renamed album or there was some shuffle?

The only difference between the mp3s they've uploaded and the LP is the song order - which is way more effective on the LP I might add. Has anyone figured out if they're actually selling a CD reissue of the album from the site and if it's available for non-Russians? If not I can upload my rip.

What's the proper songlist? And the website has 9 songs though MA tells me the LP has 8?!