there are records that when they came out didn’t get what they deserved, and there are records that simply got lost in the flow of time through no one’s fault. Patriarchs of Evil belongs to a third category: it came out in April 2018, got the praise it deserved from those who heard it, and then… it stayed there. As if waiting for you to find it.
VARATHRON from Ioannina are among the most important and least recognized names of the Greek black metal scene. If Rotting Christ is the name the world knows and Necromantia the name connoisseurs respect, Varathron are the band loved by those who have truly dug deep into the matter. More cult, darker, more evil — and with a record like this, more relevant than ever.
Patriarchs of Evil is their sixth full-length and according to many their best since Walpurgisnacht (1995). The line-up for the first time stayed stable from the previous record — and that shows. You have a band that knows what the person next to them is doing, and that chemistry gives the compositions a coherence not all their records have.
The first three tracks — “Tenebrous”, “Into the Absurd”, “Luciferian Mystical Awakening” — are among the best they’ve ever written. “Into the Absurd” especially has a boldness in its riffs that recalls death/thrash of the Messiah era, and it sounds completely natural within their sound — it isn’t an insert, it’s part of their DNA. “Luciferian Mystical Awakening” goes Scandinavian melodic black metal and pulls it off without losing itself.
Necroabyssious — Stefanos Karasavvas to everyone else — is here too the reason the record has that distinctive color. His voice is extreme even for a black metal band — brutal, pure, with a Greek accent that doesn’t try to hide and gives the sound the cult character you can’t manufacture if you don’t have it from the start.
The production is polished and modern — cleaner than the 90s, but without losing weight and “grittiness”, as someone who wrote about this record aptly put it. It isn’t the kind of production that tries to hide weaknesses — it’s the kind that lets the compositions speak.
- Worth checking this out too: THE MAGUS present the boxset edition of «Daemonosophia»
If there’s something that doesn’t work perfectly: in the middle toward the end the record sags a little, loses some of its momentum. It’s not enough to take you out of the record, but it’s enough to notice it. “Ouroboros Dweller” though closes the album in a way that erases every complaint — epic, dark, like the temperature rising in the final ten minutes.
If you haven’t heard it, now is a good time. If you’ve heard it and forgot it, it’s an even better time to put it on again. VARATHRON are one of the few bands entitled to be called legends — and this record is the proof.
Rating: Very good — a record that doesn’t age. Released: April 27, 2018 | Label: Agonia Records Websites: Facebook | Bandcamp
