As I sit here listening to Vardan, hundreds of miles from his native Sicily in the United Kingdom, things are decidedly strange here. It is as though we are in a state of enforced mourning, the Queen is dead. Wherever you are, you cannot fail to know this. People are perhaps trying to get on with their normal lives, others, seemingly half the country have joined a historical queue with grit and British determination, to file past a coffin as a mark of respect. I’m just presenting facts here as an observer on it all, there is no disrespect intended, somewhat surprisingly for this writer, just an overall feeling that everything is on hold until the funeral is over and life can return to some sense of normality. There is some context here as the music many of us listen to feels like it has truly been made for a perpetual state of mourning, some actually make and attend to it as a means of catharsis, some actually enjoy being miserable. Vardan is a prime example and has been doing so now over an incredible 34 albums. The label he delivers many of these on is well known in our circles and reflects things by its Moribund moniker. Personally, I have no problems publishing this review on the day of a state funeral, it seems apt and in some ways fitting, we have been told we should enter a state of reflection and for the time being there is indeed no exit from this figurative forest.
Back to the task at hand though. We have had almost 2 years away from the Dark and Desolated March (or shuffle in queue context) from isolationist Vardan. I guess world events pitched at a state of abject misery have even slowed him down. There have just been a couple of demos and a self-released album thematically about volcanoes by the looks of it, put out by him in the interim. The forest seems more his natural domain though and here we find ourselves trapped in it via this 5-track album, song titles taken from its name. Make no mistake, this really is a miserable listening experience, even its catalogue number DEAD 285 seems apt. The interconnected parts start with a peel of gloomy keyboards and the slow trek begins over a fugue like-state. There are frosty pulses and those inhuman cadaverous croaks and rasps, which some will admittedly find becoming all the more preposterous as things continue, warping away in a state of dismal abandonment. It plods and gives the feeling of being trapped with no way out, certainly not as it plays over the next 38-minutes. Drums slowly roll and there is nothing hinting joy is going to be found apart from some of the glistening note motifs that suggest everything must die for nature to take its course and continue once more.
Wretchedness at this way of existence is all part of it and the vocals perfectly capture this mood. It’s a depressive yet mesmerising dirge, none more so than the second 13-minute part which envelopes and hypnotises like a shroud. It has a coldness that is perfect for the time of year that summer is dying, things are turning cold and nights are drawing in. Like autumn though it is quite beautiful and some will find it a relief, that is before the cycle seems overlong and particularly soul destroying. There are some clean vocal croons nestling in the background which are a sombre addition to the alien elongated rasps gurgling along like life spiralling down a clogged-up drain.
And so, it continues, seemingly endlessly. There is not much deviation here as Vardan settles down into the confines of his hypnotic torture. The tracks are very slight deviations of the same theme, once settled into a melancholic and desolate state melody repeats like a body laid to waste decomposing oh so very slowly. We do get a sudden moment of dungeon-synth sounding music in the confines of the fourth part and the fifth has more emphasis on a piano sounding melody. Even by Vardan’s standards life is seemingly sucked out more than usual on this album and it’s neither his most adventurous performance or his most accessible. Still at this moment in time it is perfect and one has to wonder if there is someone in that queue listening to his music on headphones. If they have enough batteries with them they could probably work their way through the entire discography!
Everything dies, life is just a moment we find ourselves trapped within.
(7/10 Pete Woods)
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