Varvar

***As NWN! continues to unearth Eastern Bloc obscurities and present them to a broader international audience, few albums have generated such enthusiastic anticipation as Varvar’s 1994 masterpiece The Beastly Abyss Will Kill You. While the notion of a mid-90s heavy metal record might repel some would-be listeners, the spirit of this album is more deeply rooted in the sound of 1980s. Varvar was active from 1986 to 1990 but disbanded and reunited three years later to record their first album, only to split up again a few years after its release. With a heavy metal melodic sensibility infused with elements of speed metal, this album is perfectly situated at the nexus of those two genres. Relatively little is known about the band, but owing to both its obscurity and the uniqueness of the sound, this album has long been a Holy Grail of Russian metal among collectors.