VAHRZAW – Husk (Like Warsaw But Less Metal)
Good one guys, going with the spelling variant on a Slavic city, in this case Warsaw, or at least I assumed that was the idea (I was wrong). And since just everyone is talking about it, let’s consider for a second that scray [sic] art by the oh-so-great Luciana Nedelea, whose work you’ve probably encountered quite a bit but just never realized it because for the love of God can critics give artists more credit already?! Not sure why everyone is ripping on the art, I mean yeah it looks similar to lots of stuff, but who cares? It’s bleak, we all like that, it can scrae [sic] pretty much anyone, and of course it comes on a black shirt via the band’s merch table, what else? Why push the boundaries at all? VAHRSAW is completely content with that, and that’s the PROBLEM (CAPS are not always your friend).
This is the one thing I’m going to agree with based on the chatter I skimmed through on various crap, clickbait sites and junk FB blogs. Australia’s got some great death and black metal, blackened death metal too, but I would not toss VAHRSAW into the mix. Husk. Great name, because this album is practically a husk. It has all the exterior, none of the interior. VAHRSAW can creep, they can lurk, they can monster riff, and they can also solo shred until you can hear their muscles tear (though too often, to be honest). If there was something in here, at some point, however, it’s not there anymore. What’s present is a shell easily tossed aside by a breeze. From their earlier releases, which you can easily sample, to this one, there’s practically no difference except for overall production tone. VAHRSAW do the same thing, time and again, and that’s more scray [sic] than what they thought would be. Complacency is the poison of many a metal band, and far more frightening then any of the themes presented here. I don’t think I’ve been so underwhelmed by blackened death metal in all my life, and that’s damn hard to do. Practically the only thing these guys have going on is they did a good job of approximating the sound of the Polish language with their name, but as I found out that wasn’t even the intention in the first place, so there’s little here folks, little here.
Written by Stanley Stepanic
VAHRZAW – Husk
Blood Harvest Records
3.3 / 5
