Blutaar

This VARG group reminds me of one of Agent Max Smart’s more well-known lines…”missed it by THAT much.” Simply put, take a fantastical style and a few good ideas, toss them into a performance-style blender and hit “mediocrity” and you’ll miss your mark by more than mere inches. All sorts of bands are guilty of doing so to varying degrees, which can make for rather frustrating listens.

And these guys seem like they’re one in the pack.

Despite an energetic performance and a style that can’t be beat, VARG doesn’t really do anything to differentiate themselves as properly as I’m sure they’d like. The fun-loving atmosphere of folk metal seems hard to emulate when combined with Germanic militarism and rage no matter how many bouncy melodies are piled on. Taking said folkish melodies and placing them side by side with punishing German thrash riffs and hateful, blackened screams, VARG don’t really put a tasty musical platter together, but instead one that overflows with good ideas that are initiated in a haphazard, unfriendly way. The guitar and bass riffing shows a lot of promise as they are, with plentiful amounts of heaviness and a few moments of head-bobbing melody, the drum work gives the listener the commonplace pitter-patter of little double-bass feet and blast-beaty frenzy, and the harsh vocals evoke the necessary anger of the forceful Deutsche language, but when all put together a sense of enjoyment doesn’t seem to be present, where the well-to-do ideas found in “Nebelleben”, “Invictus” and “Wilde Jagd” don’t flesh out into the awesomeness I’m sure they would present with more time given to germinate. An unfortunate state of affairs.

In the end VARG has a number of fantastic ideas present but unfortunately the overall product doesn’t live up to them. If these guys can up the fun factor and lower the angst they’d definitely have something going for them. Proceed with caution.