Oxygen

Back to the Vargas again, but not to pour accolades their way; I already did that, for their 2013/14 period when they shot two grand albums in very quick succession. Those slabs were re-workings of old material from their early, demo stage from the early-90’s, but still they sounded absolutely ravishing, prog/tech-thrash of the old school played with consummate precision, inordinate proficiency and an eye for the inventive even.

We roll back a decade, and we bump into prototypes and oxygen masks, the band crossing the early brilliant multiple wargasms off the list in the mid-90’s, concentrating instead on a golden… sorry, groovy shower with alternative, grunge and garage rock additives, the resultant trendy fiesta not having much to do with the Metal on more than just a few occasions. There was literally nothing left from the band’s visionary technical/progressive thrashisms released a few years earlier; going with the flow had become the new slogan, and the guys rushed to produce myriad numetal prototypes, job most handsomely done on the derivative rehashed full-length debut.

The album reviewed here fares less than its predecessor, largely cause metal is barely present. This is an alternative rockorama which on top of everything is served with grating-on-the-nerves abrasive production, with even Varga’s traditionally reliable clean attached vocals taking a fall, the man acquiring a mean semi-synthesized timbre to more loyally follow the new stylistic path. Not much to get out of said path, with “Closed” closing itself to the old school canons with a bang, this piece a total take on the Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains repertoire, with “Follow” obediently following, trudging behind in a listless noisy manner. More unsightly dirge afterwards with the discordant ballad “The Passage”, the light in the tunnel here titled “So Real”, a dancey industrial jump-around that at least exudes some energy. Things start moving around timidly later, with “Words” humming mechanically with early-90’s Prong-esque reverberations, “The Den” losing its initial intriguing, quasi-progressive lustre in a chasm of mellow rock sensibilities.

Not much life to be extracted from this banal effort, the only track which resembles the Metal in any form being the dynamic cruster “Red Ribbon”, the band revelling in their numetal worship, trying to sound sincere and artificial… to no avail. Erasing their much more musically proficient past was a mission easily accomplished with this complete shedding of skin, this transformation campaign leaving nothing to chance, and consequently no vestige of old school metal dignity either. Under the circumstances, I guess it’s no wonder why the name Varga is never mentioned alongside the other representatives of the Canadian prog/tech-thrash movement from the late-80’s/early-90’s… no one thought they belonged there… cause everyone remembered the "Prototype”, the “Oxygen”… and almost nothing from what came before those.

But fair play to Varga and Co. for taking this grand trip down memory lane with the two full-lengths in the new millennium. Apparently, they also felt nostalgic for those early days, when shredding with vision and contrivance was coming naturally, and singing odes to the Metal was a calling straight from the heart. There’s certainly much more room to breathe in their camp now, oxygen isn’t exactly scarce, but why this “Mileage”, this solitary single that popped up a few years back with this unchecked groovy/grungy/rocky insistency? The Metal must have annoyed the band again somewhere down the line… at least this cover of Rush’s sprawling epic “CygnusX-1” they did a bit earlier is a really mighty one… surprises surprises, sometimes pleasant, sometimes not… the more boldly circling around the Metal the better.