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TAKING FANS BY SURPRISE WITH A BOLDER, DISTURBING SECOND ALBUM, ‘IN DARKNESS’, VARIALS ARE LAYING DOWN A GAUNTLET TO METALCORE BANDS EVERYWHERE. FRONTMAN TRAVIS TABRON WALKS US THROUGH THE LATEST, CRITICAL CHAPTER IN THEIR STORY.

- Rob Sayce

No matter who you are, no matter what you do, you can’t truly control what people will think of you.

In a climate where personal brands and carefully sculpted online personas hold so much sway, bands like Varials are all the more refreshing. Whether you’re talking music, social media politics or the familiar narratives the world builds around artists, frontman Travis Tabron is more straight-up and forthright than most.

For example, when it comes to the Philadelphia crew’s brilliantly confrontational second album ‘In Darkness’ - all nerve-shredding industrial atmospherics and none-more-caustic metalcore - and why it sounds so different to 2017’s ‘Pain Again’...

“‘Pain Again’ did its job, but in my opinion that record fucking sucks,” he laughs, “There are like, four good songs on there, and that’s it - it’s mostly all mosh riffs. We just grew up and said, ‘Fuck that shit, we’re going to write what we want to. If people like it, they do, if not, not’. There’s been this really cool shift in mentality recently in the metal scene, where it doesn’t just have to be breakdowns all the time. Not everyone has to do the same thing, and that’s so sick.”

“When I was growing up, everybody would say that they had your back, but nobody actually seemed to actually live like that. Nowadays, some of my best friends in the entire world live across the country, and I know them strictly because we toured together. The thing I pride myself on with Varials is, we’re a gateway band. So many better bands than us have gotten new fans from those kids seeing us, and asking us who we listen to.”