Varmia – nie nas widzę
Release Date: 16th June 2023
Label: M-Theory Audio
Bandcamp
Genre: Pagan Black Metal, Baltic Folk, Progressive, Ethnic.
FFO: Blackbraid, Behemoth, early Enslaved, Gaerea, Wardruna.
Review By: Rick Farley
Olsztyn black metal pagans Varmia, originally formed by composer Lasota, has carried the torch for instrumental alchemy in their native country of Poland since 2016. Fusing together olden black metal with archaic influences ranging from Baltic folk to music from the historical region of Warmia.
Employing traditional ethnic instrumentation such as the tagelharpa, goat horn, wood tuba and krivula, the quartet create visceral and dark metal landscapes that are both sonically and technically enthralling. Channelling the powerful spirit of early Enslaved and Satyricon with the elemental folk that has come to shape such acts as Warduna and Heilung.
The first two paragraphs are credited to the press release and describe this band’s sound nearly perfectly without me having to painfully explain every little detail. So, I decided to include it for the sake of a normal-sized review and for the idea that I simply could not word it any better.
nie nas widzę marks Varmia’s fourth full length album and conceptually is the story of the cult of Fire, Sun, Moon, and Water. Four pieces that are vital elements to their ancestor’s beliefs and create the very centre of the Pagan universe. The album was produced over the course of a year and a half, and the band utilized several remote, culturally significant locations in Poland, including dungeon cellars, barns, medieval castles, and field recordings. Although the album has twelve tracks, coming in at over an hour, there are four songs that are the heart of the record, with everything in between telling the full story along the way.
Musically, the band is somewhere between 90s black metal and ethnic folk music. An intoxicating blend of authentic sounds that reaches for your soul, entrancing you before engorging you in blackened fire. A dreadful yet alluring rawness exists within this dense soundscape that engulfs your consciousness. Extreme, wicked, calming and mesmerizing are all appropriate adjectives to describe what’s to be discovered here, and that’s just barely scratching the surface of it all. The darkly tranquil acoustic guitar passage of instrumental opener I with the sounds of a crackling fire behind it, transcending to ethnic sounding melodies and tribal percussion, before charging into the stormy black metal intensity of SVA. The first song representing one of the four elements, presumably fire as it’s listed first, is pure blackened darkness conquering spitefully before the mid-tone vocal shrieks turn into a layered clean chant, combining with the tagelharpa and blast beats, giving off a spellbinding ethereal feel that’s hard to resist. A moth to a flame, if you will.
The abrasive Kad Saule Div has guttural death metal brutality and groove to it, much in the same way Behemoth uses death and black metal to create extreme atmospheres. Varmia takes those soundscapes even further, beguiling you with anthemic chanting and airy instrumentation as it slowly rips you apart. A stunning showcase of how cathartic the darkness is. poswaiat starts with a lone, sombre acoustic guitar passage, building to distorted chords and a simple guitar melody. A wall of tremolo picked guitars consume the melody and is thick behind the tortured screams, echoing the hyper aggressive primitive black metal of olde. The sound of extreme, primal fury.
The albums strength comes from the idea that the merging of anger, anguish, sadness and serenity are all on equal ground and thoroughly represented. There are brilliant moments of subtlety and restraint, as well as pure chaos, all often within the same song that transcend black metal into something completely dreamlike beyond its brutish ugliness. Don’t get it confused though, this record is wretched and brutal, it’s just that Varmia explore their ethnic roots beautifully and are unafraid of pushing boundaries through engrossing soundscapes and meditative harmonies. nie nas widzę is a must-listen for every black metal fan. 
(4.5 / 5)
