Varg
Blutaar
Nuclear Blast

The band probably won’t thank me for this, but Varg’s second album, ‘Blutaar’, is a jolly pleasant affair; no more than that, a harmless, enjoyable listen, but one that won’t contain any life-altering aural fireworks. You might wonder why we need yet another band pretending to be Vikings (seriously people, they really weren’t very nice, nor particularly glamorous despite the myths – in fact, naught to be proud of), and as noted before this is nothing new; but you will find yourself headbanging along quite happily with little inclination to turn it off. But unless the band get a really good tour support slot across Europe, this smacks of being an album that will sink without a trace; that would be a shame, but not a great loss.

The mix is infuriatingly inconsistent, at times beautifully balanced, such as during the rollicking title track; at others so shoddy the cymbal crashes are all but obliterating the melodious guitar lines, ‘Viel Fiend Viel Ehr’ is a prime example – and being the first proper track get proceedings off to a slightly ignominious start. Varg appear to have positioned themselves as Finntroll’s more serious cousins, and in doing so have completely missed the point; the lack of tongue-in-cheek humour that sits so well with the genre leaves a hole in the middle of ‘Blutaar’, it has you feeling like the kid at the back of the class giggling at the serious boy trying so hard at the front. But that boy is having some success; the folky dabblings do not feel like gimmicks but rather are integral parts to the machinery conjured up, albeit a secondary cog behind the more obvious black metal; tracks like ‘Sieg Oder Niedergang’ and the epic ‘Seele’ rattle along nicely.

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Review by Dominic Hemy