THE LAST LINE - VARNA

3/7/2019 

By Dan Weston
 

The Last Line is a band from Los Angeles that released a five-song EP entitled Varna. Each one of the songs has a fairly different vibe yet they do a good job creating some cohesion as well. Some songs are more rock based while others tend towards pop and even hip-hop

​The albums starts with “Off Tonight.” You are greeted with warm pads and soon enough a beat and lead guitar work. The vocals are soulful and I liked the melody on the verse. They get into the hook before the one-minute mark and it’s good one. There isn’t too much flash and they go back to the second chorus before the two-minute mark. The song goes into a psychedelic swirl of sorts. It a well done instrumental break that was more about atmosphere than any type of lead. The Eddie Van Halen guitar solo worked as well.

“Laugh It Off” leaned more towards a pop than anything else. The song is comprised of electronic elements like arpeggiated synths which catch your ear on the verse but the chorus contains traditional instruments that you would find in a rock band like guitar, bass and drums which become the predominant ingredient. The hook definitely felt like a single worthy pop song.

The band rocks out hard on “Hurricanes.” I loved the groove especially on the bass. As an engineer myself I thought there were too many high frequencies during the chorus. My favorite part of the song was when they get back to the verse. Overall, a powerful song that seemed to be ’80s influenced.

“Polite” was such a different style from everything else at least during some parts, in particular the dark verse which is more or less hip-hop. The chorus felt a little more aligned with the signature sound they were developing. I’m still on the fence about this song if only for the fact it felt like a different band at points.

“Honesty” ends on a high note. The vocals might be their best here and for whatever reason seemed to have a lot more clarity. It’s a dark song, a little aggressive and seemed to be a song where the band felt most natural.

Varna is a solid effort. The songwriting is there and I liked what they were doing in terms of instrumentation and thinking outside of the box with the production. This is a band to keep tabs on. I’m excited to hear more.