Album Review: Varhara – The First Breath After
Artist: Varhara
Title: The First Breath After
Label: These Hands Melt
Release date: June 20th, 2025
Country: Russia
Format reviewed: High-quality digital recording
Album Review: Varhara – The First Breath After via These Hands Melt by Pegah
I’ve never listened to metal in the Russian language, but Varhara made that first experience a pleasant impression with their new album “The First Breath After”, released via These Hands Melt. Coming from Saint Petersburg, Varhara’s sound sits somewhere between atmospheric black metal and blackgaze—a genre blend I don’t usually seek out. However, I chose to step outside my comfort zone and approach this album with an open mind, free of preconceptions. What initially pulled me in wasn’t the music, though—it was the cover art and the band’s logo. Both minimal yet full of meaning and connected to nature. The cover art is dark, yet it exudes a gentle atmosphere through its close-up of nature. The same duality is present in their music—while the soundscape can strike with the harsh weight of reality, moments of softness emerge, like a gentle current washing that heaviness away.
The opening track, “Smola (The Pitch)”, introduces death as the absolute power. Its soundscape with relentless speed feels symbolic; it captures the feeling of running toward something unreachable, a desperate chase that ends in nothingness. It embodies an overwhelming force, greater than ourselves, that ultimately shapes and dominates our lives. “Uragan (Hurricane)” unfolds a bleak and frigid atmosphere. The soundscape pulls you deep into a storm of darkness—one where you’re not just surrounded by chaos, but forced to confront a reflection of yourself within it. It evokes the feeling of being lost in the hurricane of life, drifting through alienation, and becoming a stranger even to your own identity.
“Iskara (Spark)” steps back from the weight of the previous track; the storm has slowdown, if only slightly. While the instrumentation feels gentler, the emotional intensity shifts to the vocals—a raw, frustrated scream that carries the burden of the lyrics. The track slowly pulls you into the void, not with force, but with quiet resignation. The lyrics, though brief, carry depth—capturing the tension of existing between two worlds and the helplessness of being caught somewhere in-between. The title track, “The First Breath After”, has a more ethereal soundscape. It feels like waking in a different world—the beginning of something new, fragile, yet unknown. A first breath, not just after the chaos, but in an entirely different existence.
“Prazdnik (The Celebration)” carries a faint spark of hope, especially in its first half. The slower tempo and more reflective atmosphere suggest a quiet confrontation with the self—two shadows merging, perhaps rising as one. But as the track unfolds, that hope begins to fade. The second half reveals a bitter truth: that no one remembers us as children, and “There is nothing but loss in this path”. The closing track, “Burial”, unfolds with a soft, gentle soundscape—like walking through a quiet grassland on a summer evening. But this calm is laced with sorrow. It feels like a slow procession toward the burial of lost emotions, of memories that can no longer be revived. This piece serves as a eulogy for a love that is gone and will never return.
With “The First Breath After”, Varhara unearths the deepest and darkest emotions in each track—grief, alienation, inner conflict, and quiet despair. Yet, beyond the swirling soundscapes and poetic lyricism, the album delivers a singular, bitter truth: “Forget about everything, all roads lead here.” To death. 8/10
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8/10 To Greatness and Glory!
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