Genesis of Apocryphal Desire

I'm often lauded or loathed for my general hostility towards metal (or really any musical) compilations, but my opinion stands that the best are those used to gather rare or unreleased material for fans that had no real access to it in the past. Varathron's Genesis of Apocryphal Desire is one such exception, a grasp into the band's 1989-1991 era with a few unreleased tracks from the mid-90s tacked on as a bonus. Despite a few redundancies, it stands alongside the band's first two full-lengths His Majesty at the Swamp and Walpurgisnacht as the quintessential trinity of go-to efforts from this overlooked treasure, though I must warn that much of the material contained herein is not necessarily in the same distinctly Greek style as the 90s full-lengths.

Of special importance to me here are the band's demos, Procreation of the Unaltered Evil (1989) and Genesis of Apocryphal Desire (1991), which are included in full and make up for most of the compilation's play length. Procreation... has a darker, death/thrash vibe to it, but supports strong riffing, ghoulish vocals and trippy effects in "Necranastasis", and a more glorious gait in "Dawn of Sordid Decay" that inevitably explodes into the faster black/thrash riffing. I've already made my feelings clear about "Genesis of Apocryphal Desire", an amazing black/thrash tune that appeared on the One Step Beyond Dreams EP, but the same-titled demo also includes a few of the tracks from the Necromantia split ("La Reine Noir", "The Tressrissing of Nyarlathotep"), and a pretty crisp and excellent death bludgeon called "Seven Endless Horizones" which stands as one of my favorites for this particular release.

Beyond these, there are a trio of tracks previously unreleased. "The Great Seal of Graal" is a morbid, swaggering black/doom piece recorded far back in 1989, which is genuinely dark, though I did not enjoy the snappish, under produced drums. "The Mystic Papyrus", from 1993, has a style to it redolent of their debut full-length His Majesty at the Swamp. The verse rhythms are not exactly distinct, but I enjoy the melodic canter of the bridge and the ensuing break into double bass driven melodic death muting. "Deep Beneath an Ancient Dominion" is the third and best produced of these, not to mention the most recent, from 1995, and has a very similar tone to what you'd hear on Walpurgisnacht, or the Rotting Christ efforts Thy Mighty Contract or Non Serviam. Again, not too memorable, but good enough that it's a boon in conjunction with the remainder of this material.

Admittedly, Genesis of Apocryphal Desire could be somewhat more complete if they had incorporated the rest of their half of the Necromantia split (like "The Cult of the Dragon"), and the A-side of the One Step Beyond Dreams EP, but as it stands its still a good value if you're fond of the band's studio output. The demos show a mildly darker Varathron that might have been, had the band leaned further towards their grisly death/thrash origins, but you can clearly hear the evolutions through the years by comparing this to His Majesty at the Swamp, and that is the best purpose something this can ever serve. Of course, this all hinges on the assumption that most who check this out will not own all of the constituent sources. If so, this is easily ignored.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

The early Greek black metal scene is hailed by many as being unique and consistently impressive, having produced bands with a dark atmosphere that maintained their early metal roots unlike the cavalcade of Scandinavian trendies who took black metal to mean never diverging from tremolo picking in 4/4 time on open chords. While it is true that pioneers like Varathron, Rotting Christ, Necromantia and Zemial produced undeniably dark material with heavy riffing and a unique atmosphere to boot, it's always been difficult for me to appreciate or even stomach the majority of their material. I find that their thrashing and heavy riffs and cliched and frequently disappoint and that something about the "signature Greek sound" just seems lame and unsatisfying. Now, I'm not going to indict that whole scene (or maybe I will!). For now I'll set my focus on Varathron's collection of demo and unreleased material: Genesis of Apocryphal Desire.

Varathron were one of the first black metal bands to arise in the Greek scene, forming all the way back in 1988 and releasing their first demo "Procreation of the Unaltered Evil" in '89. Of course at this point death metal was still the trend just about everywhere else, and black metal as we know it today was in its infancy. As can be expected, the earliest Varathron material was strongly aligned with thrash metal. However, it was unmistakably early black metal in that it used midpaced repetitious dark sounding riffs as well as delivering healthy portions of thrashing. Now this sounds like a good combination so far. And as far as their first demo is concerned I had few problems. The production was quite poor and the music sounded very sparse, but that all worked into the strangeness and eerie atmosphere I was expecting. The mid-paced to slow riffs loomed along and all was pretty cool. Perhaps if I had stopped at their 10 minute long debut demo I'd be pleased. Unfortunately, by 1991 Varathron had undergone some changes and decided to stick to a more bland thrashing sound with little skill in songwriting and really annoyingly juvenile riffs. For the middle section of this album, which is the "Genesis of Apocryphal Desire" demo, I began to quickly lose interest. I could barely sit through a song of riff after riff with nothing good to latch onto. Even the production just seemed amateur and unacceptable with the poor riffage. And things got worse with the unreleased tracks from the mid 90s. The song structures more closely resembled rock than black metal, the riffs were totally aimless, and they couldn't seem to produce anything but the kind of worthless trash one would expect from a band of know-nothing teenagers. The first two or three tracks acted as a hook, and once they reeled me in I was disgusted with all that followed.

While there are aspects of Varathron's sound I'm drawn to, it seems that they can't consistently execute a desirable style. Admittedly, basing this view on demo material isn't really the same as giving the band a complete analysis. But as far as their earliest material is concerned (which many refer to as the backbone of their sound) it's just not very good. I have investigated their highly praised debut (which I may at some point come to an apreciation of, as it often takes me many listens to crack an album open and get to its delicious innards) but I'm not sure about Varathron or early Greek black metal in general. Many a respectable metal reviewer and fan have praised them, and since I have been in agreement with the taste of said people (for the most part) I went along and searched this stuff out. Maybe they're all just dingdongs and my taste in black metal is better. Or maybe there's just some inborn quality in me that says "no Greek shit for me". Who knows. All I can do is deliver this delightfully cheesy pun: "It's all Greek to me!"

Varathron are one of the two pioneers of the Greek sound. Together with Rotting Christ they formed a foundation for many later Hellenic acts, developing a style that was unique, powerful and timeless to the listener.

This compilation gives an insight into Varathron's earliest days. The tracklist appears in chronological order (apart from the last two songs) and one can definitely hear their progress and steady improvement. "Necranastasis" and "Dawn of Sordid Decay" appeared on their first demo in '89. Deeply influenced by Slayer around the time, the music is filled with harsh, but rather generic thrash riffs, pounding drums and distorted vocals. But even in their first baby steps, the dark aura surrounding their later creations was already present. Varathron's songwriting abilities weren't of a high calibre yet, so these first two songs aren't very memorable or overly exciting, but they are a must for fans like me, who are interested in Varathron's history.

Tracks 4 to 8 were released on their second (and most important) demo, which eventually got them signed. The progress in both, songwriting and production, cannot be denied and so Varathron wrote 5 tracks of atmospheric black metal with a few thrash tendencies, but mostly midpaced heavy metal riffing, which later became the trademark for the Hellenic metal scene. Again, the historical importance of these tracks is of a very significant nature.

I want to put my main focus onto the last two tracks, though. "The Mystic Papyrus" and "Deep Beneath an Ancient Dominion" were previously unreleased and I have no idea why they weren't used on any albums. Especially the former is a very raw but also catchy track with great riffing and memorable solos. Necroabyssios voice is fully developed already (I guess the track was recorded around 1992) and fits very well to the song. With some more time spent on the production, this one should have made the final cut for their magnificent debut album.

The recording "Deep Beneath an Ancient Dominion" is of worse quality and sounds even earlier than "The Mystic Papyrus". Idea-wise, it's (for the time) a very melodic Varathron song with some great, typical riffing and good vocals by Necroabyssios. While I see more reasons for excluding this song from any further material (mainly it's rather disjointed structure; but the basic approach was there), it still remains an underrated and almost forgotten collection of good ideas, which could have been developed upon.

"Genesis of Apocryphal Desire" might not be a good start for those who are new to the band, but it is an enriching collection for any fan that's interested in Varathron's embryonic state.

Reigning from Greece comes Varathron with this compilation of early demo releases. A band that started in 1988 and knew what dark musical aspects they liked and stuck to it. During the course of their discography they slowly became more experimental and melodic but still retained root characteristics of earlier ideas.

Displayed on here is their first demo, as well as their official EP (on reissue), and the pinnacle demo right before the release of their debut. As well as two tracks that never came out. Titled 'The Mystic Papyrus' and 'Deep Beneath an Ancient Dominion'.

Varathron is a band that sounds very similar to earlier Rotting Christ. Often sharing members of R.C. with the addition of drummer Themis on One Step Beyond Dreams and on Genesis. As well as Jim Mutilator on bass since the beginning till their debut. The music is stemmed from 80's era thrash similar to Slayer. With One Step Beyond and Genesis adding a second guitarist. We see the use of dual guitars to accent each other with higher more melodic riffs. While simultaneously using lower notes to make a meld of interchangeability. Varathron mixes this with aspects of, at that point somewhat unclear, black metal ideologies.

Each demo seemed to progress and highlight more areas that would lead up to their debut. With the production making the drums become more distinct - to his vocals improving and fitting the music evenly. Deeply growled or distorted vocals in my opinion are fitting to certain bands. However, I think the music has to accompany its level of intensity. In the beginning he was a little off with overly distorted growled tones. But per release he leveled them and made them characteristic to the often melodic song structures.

The only disappointment of this compilation is the lack of a biography. Even the unauthorized Death demos had a short introduction. Although the major plus side is this includes lyrics and a clear run of their early releases as well as two unreleased songs.

Early Varathron mixed brutality into melodic song structures. Across continent Sweden were doing similar feats but would eventually lose the brutal side with numerous bands. A band that also sounded similar to Rotting Christ however due to their success this doesn't put Varathron in their shadow. Their early era seemed like a collaboration of ideas of dark minded individuals who were fore frontiers in the scene. If you heard Varathron's later work and want to dive deeper into their early thought processes. Then, I recommend you swim to this and don't worry about the other shallow later scene!

Note to reader: The score is based off of a compilation stand point as well as Varathron's musical outputs and its historical relevance.

-J.M.