(Furia Musica, www.terra.pl/furia )

Thank god, that Tomek from Poland contacted me and asked, if I would be interested in reviewing some stuff of Cold-Wave bands from Poland, otherwise, I possibly would have never heard bands like Wieze Fabryk and this great album of VARIÉTÉ, which is the release of music that has been recorded back in 1986, but never has seen the light of day at all.

It seems, that VARIÉTÉ has been one of the „big“ bands in the polish underground scene and the album is briliant. It sounds like a mixture of Joy Division and very early Girls Under Glass and has a certain Post Punk feeling. I think of bands like Crispy Ambulance, Das Wesen and The Cure´s „Seventeen Seconds“ album at times. The info calls the style Cold Wave, but it is not the same music like bands as Clair Obscur played, but more typical 80s Gothic, with the interesting sound of the Polish language, which is sometimes very strange for people from Mid- and Western Europe. I really love it to discover bands from so called „exotic“ countries, which are not too well known in the Gothic scene and I really often discover such good groups like VARIÉTÉ. Unfortunatly I am not able to read the Polish liner notes in the booklet, so I cannot give any further information about the band, but I will soon try to interview the band and find out more.

Beside the 40 minutes long album, the CD contains nearly half an hour of a late 80s concert of the band, which shows, that the band was also very good on stage. Don´t wait to contact Tomek and get this CD, if you like cold, but emotional 80s Rock with a certain „Factory“ atmosphere. (A.P.)