Vår
No One Dances Quite Like My Brothers

“Hey hey, my my, Rock and roll can never die” sang Neil Young in 1979, and if he told us so, we should heed his words. But I wonder, can dark ever die?

These are thoughts, questions that arise in my mind every time I approach unabashedly revivalist realities like these Var. And in the face of works like “No One Dances Quite Like My Brothers,” the answer is: no, dark can never die, at least as long as an industrialized and alienating society exists, made up of sad suburbs, and it harbors within itself dissatisfied and hopeless youth.

Music of discomfort and disintegration, the “invention” of Ian Curtis and Joy Division, the development of that idea by Robert Smith and The Cure, works like “Seventeen Seconds,” “Faith,” and “Pornography” are not merely the expression of feelings exclusive to a “wild” generation that lived between the seventies and eighties, but a full-fledged style, a cliché if you will, a “spirit,” an attitude usable over time and declinable into new forms, also because from then to now the (Western) world has certainly not improved.

Always following the words of Neil Young, “The King is gone (Elvis Presley – n.d.a.) but he's not forgotten, this is the story of Johnny Rotten”: emblematic verses that mark the passing of the torch from the old school to the new generation. Verses that I don't quote at random, since right in the figure of Mr. John Joseph Lydon, the legendary first voice of the equally legendary Sex Pistols, then a prominent member of the seminal post-punk project Public Image Ltd, we can find similarities with the profile of the anti-hero, scaled down to our times of prevailing mediocrity, Elias Bender Ronnenfelt, already the fiery voice of Iceage, the band of the moment in the punk and derivatives area, and now involved in this new adventure of emancipation from the punk verb, Var (with the dot on the A), born as a duo and already active as War: nothing less than a nice swerve towards dark-wave and synth-pop shores, a project that includes among its ranks, besides co-founder Loke Rahbek (directly from Lust for Youth), other more or less known figures from the current Danish post-punk scene (Kristian Emdal from Lower and Lukas Hojland from Pagan Youth). The visibility they received thanks to a far-sighted label like Sacred Bones makes them, if nothing else, a phenomenon worthy of attention.

The mournful sound of looped synthesized violins over a base of funereal trumpets and the blows of apocalypse drums is somewhat reminiscent of Coil, and from this we understand two things: the first is that we are not in front of a glossed-over cover band of Joy Division/New Order (like Editors, just to be clear); the second is that the proposal could be truly interesting if the Var's synth-pop decides to cloak itself in leaden atmospheres and sticky industrial fogs and even loves to dance to the beat of percussion with a martial taste. Continuing with the listening of the opener “Begin to Remember” we understand two more things: that we must get Coil out of our heads because Var can't play a damn thing and Ronnenfelt continues to be as off-key as a bell; the other thing, however, is that the music of Var is simple yet effective, concrete, carries with it a discreet, almost underground charm, digs deep and – can I say it? - conveys a real discomfort: a nihilism, a fragile melancholy, the idea of a requiem for desolated souls that calls to mind the masterpieces of the genre from the early eighties, their indomitable spirit. It's pointless to beat around the bush, we are in the realms of “Seventeen Seconds” and “Faith” (at most with some echoes evoking the early Depeche Mode and obviously the more pop-oriented New Order, with some bursts of the EBM to follow), and if “No One Dances Quite...” had come out thirty years ago it would be an important work, certainly to be inscribed in the annals. But because it is released in 2013, it should be taken for what it is: simply a beautiful album, a significant attempt.

Tac! Everyone ready with the rifle aiming against Ronnenfelt, who certainly doesn't shine with sympathy, and with the weight of the excessive clamor aroused around the Iceage phenomenon that had annoyed some genre purists, and here instead the four boys from Copenhagen write on their debut (perhaps unripe, confused, but incisive like few others) one of the most beautiful pages in recent dark-wave. Definitely derivative, yet heartfelt, disorienting, exhausting, this “No One Dances Quite...”, able to arouse real emotions, all obviously negative. The same Mementomori (the king of darkness & evil) simply couldn't listen to it in summer, it ruined the summer for him, it gave him anxiety, I don't know guys, it happens even to the toughest.

And so we talked about “Begin to Remember,” icy synthesizers, and desolation galore, a significant injection of Nordic-European teenage discomfort, despite its extreme brevity: after all, the album itself is only a little over half an hour long, evidently the Var do not need a long duration to hit the mark, indeed, perhaps it is precisely this proceeding with quickly sketched, abruptly cut-off discourses, interrupted after notable prologues, that helps plant those elements of disturbance making listening a bitter experience. Not to mention a perfectly approximate production that equalizes the sounds into a suggestive blend where it's hard to recognize the contribution of different instruments. With the pressing beats of the subsequent “The World Fell,” the music changes: we are catapulted into obvious New Order-ish territories, and we already understand that the Var are not just moaning but also disco (but a disco with a funeral party atmosphere), with synthesizers and drum machines in the foreground, thereby betraying the original nature of a duo, and leaving the bass and guitars to crawl between the notes like an intangible buzzing that thickens a sound that often loves to indulge in the ambient dimension. Ronnenfelt's voice becomes dark and tenor-like as required by the context (more than once bringing Robert Smith to mind), but doesn't lose that roughness and something of raucousness inherited from punk of which he is more than a worthy interpreter with his Iceage (perhaps he's simply out of tune?). Little else to add: everything spins as it should, which is why it's easier to accept them, these Var, than to be fussy.

The title track, bordering on a dronic drift, dense with industrial creaks and blasts of icy synth, leads us to Badalamentian shores (probably due to the dreamy female narration reminiscent of Julie Cruise in “Twin Peaks”), emphasizing the two souls of the band, perpetually suspended between the danceable dark song (“Motionless Duty,” “Pictures of Today/Victorial,” “Into Distance”) and the ambient nightmare (“Hair Like Feathers,” “Boy”), even though in both cases the Var firmly base their center of gravity on the lessons imparted by Robert Smith's band. The lacerating “Katla” closes the circle by walking again on the mournful notes of the trumpets, matched with – regarding structures and moods (the funereal march of the percussion, a stifled scream that fades into the distance reiterating the same phrase) – with the track that had masterfully opened the album, leaving the listener with the feeling that perhaps the Var are the expression of the best possible dark today, at least in its classical sense, the original one: raw, emotional, visceral, devoid of the kitschy traits typical of certain gothic trash that has long been masquerading as dark.

But if we want to conclude by staying on the subject of prophecies, then allow me to express a few words too, even if I don't have the authority of Neil Young: Iceage and Var are a blaze that will soon extinguish. And not just because times have changed and the way of making (and selling) music has changed (today everything is hype, everything is destined to burn and perish in the blink of an eye: a musical bulimia constantly seeking new sensations that devours artists and works at the speed of light and which plagues both the record industry and the audience these products are aimed at). Apparently, longevity is no longer something that concerns contemporary artists (tell me, apart from exceptional exceptions, who today withstands the test of time beyond their third effort?), so let's not worry about it right now, let's not wrap our heads before breaking them, if the phenomena of the moment probably won't see tomorrow: let's enjoy the present, let's seize what is best it can offer in this sea of crap and suppress the urge to necessarily look to the future.

But it's not just for these reasons, it was said, that Iceage and Var will have a short life: the fact is that if you take a very young singer, let's say a brat, and suddenly put him in front of a decent success, at most two years he will no longer be able to hold the microphone. And if you happen to think of, coincidentally, Elias Bender Ronnenfelt himself, someone who can't stand half an hour of concert and who already in the first tours with Iceage was forced to leave the stage (or not even climb it) for having “a bit” overindulged in his vices, the allusion is not at all accidental. There may be something rotten in Denmark, but if even Iceland, which produced the best artists between the nineties and two thousands, has emerged from the spotlight, I don't think this “Danish spring” will be followed by a blooming summer.

Out of the Blue, into the Black.