Review Summary: Varmints enjoys its own style as a bubbly but sophisticated electric fairy tale.
Varmints, despite being a debut LP, comes from a well-seasoned musician. Anna Meredith, after gaining a Master’s Degree from The Royal College of Music in 2003, went on to collaborate on several classical music projects including works for the BBC Proms. It comes as a surprise then that her solo endeavour is much more of an electronica album although with some classical influence. For Varmints, Meredith takes a Post-era Bjork type approach, where electronic experiments are used to create a sonic vibrancy and a youthfulness that is both welcoming and exciting.
Out of the twelve tracks on Varmints, eight are instrumentals, and it’s through these instrumentals that Meredith displays her knack for structuring music in pleasant and satisfying ways. The flowing elegance of Scrimshaw has animated techno-pop synths bubbling under the surface which boil over towards the end of the track, while R-Type, after an exposition of gusty synths, crescendos with guitar wails as heavy as such a fairy tale soundscape would allow. Despite this knack, towards the back end of this album there is Shill where the payoff barely justifies the preceding few minutes of mundanity, and opening fanfare Nautilus where such a climax is warranted, but missing. These however, are the only two tracks on this album that are lacking and the overall quality of Varmints is very strong.
The four songs that appear on Varmints are all great pieces of music. They’re often the most upbeat tracks on the album with echoes of the bouncier side of IDM on Last Rose and bounds of rhythmic agitation on Taken. The songs tend not to be very lyrically potent, they more so serve as reason to include Meredith’s modestly sweet vocals. The only exception to this would be Dowager, a slow but gorgeous track in which the escapist lyrics reflect the longing moods of the synths - ‘so the dowager plays by herself/plans her escape/takes to the sky’ – culminating in one of the most cathartic moments of the album.
What sets Varmints apart from other records of its kind is how well Meredith infuses classical textures into her music, and layers motifs in cartoonishly playful ways. It’s this that makes Blackfriars and Honeyed Words such indulgent tracks, but all of the pieces here benefit from Meredith’s unique background. While not the most revolutionary electronic album, Varmints enjoys its own style and hints at an artist capable of some very interesting endeavours to come.
