Suomi hardcore is a difficult beast to speculate on. From punk's birthing days their bands have always seemed to exist within their own microcosm, never quite mimicking the influences of the Euro bands painted on their reindeer leathers, but taking those same influences into some surprising areas. There's always an undercurrent of dark melody beneath their collective fetish for heavy reverb (it's almost a "thing" with Finnish punk bands and their studios. I personally love it as it adds a layer of despondency depending on the genre being recorded). The bands aren't quite as neanderthalic as they appear upon first listen, with any musical proficiency often masked by an energetic tempo and often original sounding distortions. "Alien" is a good enough adjective to sum up those Arctic sounds. The bands are also legitimately nihilistic, quite often going to war with all life, let alone the usual topics endlessly railed against in thousands of 7"s across the globe. The exotic lilt of the Finnish language suits both hatred and punk rock very well.Enter Varaus: a band that once notoriously recorded a single-sided LP with the most god-awful lack of packaging ever. A record that commands a 1,000 zenny coin on the SECOND pressing (Katz Seki owns the first pressing. My god!). Ya know, I'm trying desperately to rail against that pricing, but due to the band's historicity (VERY early on, we're talking 1982-1984) and adeptness at creating the type of punk/thrash I wrote about in the former paragraph, I'm finding it really hard to talk shit. This is the '96 Kraklund Records discography cd, and as you can see by the picture, the packaging was again keeping in line with Varaus' "we just don't give a shit" aesthetic. Supposedly the CD commands several hundred bucks now. Whether that's a true testament to Varaus' tunes, or collectors are just severely delusional is still beyond me...but I like Varaus, and I'm hoping you like them too. Fave track: "Rastat Rastat".
