Album Review: Var Umn – Weald Spirit
Band: Var Umn
Album title: Weald Spirit
Country: Portugal
Release date: April 1st, 2025
Label: Independent
Format reviewed: Digital (Spotify)
Album Review: Var Umn – Weald Spirit by Ask
Var Umn is a project of ritualistic music, the style named by the Portuguese founder and multi-instrumentalist as Raw Animism. Giving the style a name of its own instead of claiming a home in an existing genre gives unlimited freedom to the artist and makes the listener come to the ritual with open mind and ears. This is a smart move. The expression within the 25 minutes of the EP Weald Spirit ranges from acoustic ritual drums to nature sounds, to vocalized mantras, distorted guitars and full-on metal growls. Expectations of adherence to any convention would have hindered the experience.
Weald Spirit begins slowly and thoughtfully with nature sounds and distant bells. Distant voices create a feeling of something moving closer from the edge of the forest. A rhythm takes over, created by hand drum and bursts of growling, and in that intimidating and captivating atmosphere, a distorted guitar starts playing a riff.
With this opening, the listener is drawn into the abstract story told by drum, voices and guitar. The minimalist arrangement feels intimate and personal, even though the spirit raised seem non-human. The mixing has been minimal, leaving lots of rough edges, which works wonderfully on the passages that are dominated by guitars, drum and voice. Instruments never form a sound wall, rather every sound gets its own room and space, and often only one or two instruments play together. Various acoustic instruments are allowed variation and imperfection. Nature sounds are subtle and seem almost accidental in a realistic way. This is an approach that gives a lot of texture and room. An energy is raised that feels dark and earthy.
An almost jazzy solo of undistorted guitar, accompanied by rain and thunder followed by birdsong brings a sense of lightness and contemplation after the heavy energy is raised. It is soon followed by a heavy guitar with a warm, dark tone played in a way that sounds improvised, riffs and melodies created in the moment, born out of the powers summoned in the ritual. Growled vocal bring waves of energy. The distorted guitar melody in the second song is my favourite passage of the whole EP. It is wild and free, yet simple and grounded. The raw and unprocessed tunes are then joined by a second distorted guitar and together they braid a story which I would have listened to for hours if it went on, but since this is a work of Raw Animism and not of metal, the story will soon shift.
The dark melodic passages give room to a soundscape based on a deep synthesizer drone, topped with nature sounds and delicate strands of melody from acoustic instruments. While the rough mixing style was perfect for the distorted sounds, acoustic instruments and nature samples, it is doing less service to the ambient and synthesiser-based parts. The drone is so heavy it drowns the subtle instrumentation on top of it. An effect of shifting between right and left speaker could have been hypnotic but is so heavily applied it becomes a distraction. A crackling sound gets in the way of the music and makes me check if something is wrong with my phones. These choices break the spell. From the ritual in the forest clearing, I am moved to a world of technology, thinking about which effects that have been used and how it could have been improved.
Because of the amazing start of the Weald Spirit, I push through and keep listening over and over despite the annoying mixing choices, and it pays off. For every spin I get less distracted and gradually hear the world beneath the tech-cluttered surface. What I find is a hidden treasure, a veiled landscape of infinite originality. The turns and changes are subtle and gentle. Harmonies and melodies come and go in ways that are unexpected but feel just right. Like very old patterns used for new shapes.
Weald Spirit is a journey well worth travelling despite its obstacles. I would love to hear what Var Umn can do with a gentler hand at the mixing table. 8/10
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8/10 To Greatness and Glory!
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