This Russian trio label themselves as an Experimental Metal Industrial hybrid, and yet their dance credentials seem pretty impressive given the fluid punchiness blessing most tracks, so they’re pretty odd, which seems like a plus. They’re also fun, with a hint of darkness and a pinch of commercial clout.
‘Landing’ seems like it’s setting us up for a voyage of vocoder-bolstered trance, which would be a nightmare to describe, so I’m glad that doesn’t happen on various levels, including the fact it’s never fun. Instead they wobble along quite briskly and into a slicker, rickety ‘Nyctota’ with neat guitar detail picked out above synth demands, the music welling up discreetly, and the returning guitar motif acting like a melodic magnet over a delicious,, delicate rhythm.
‘Alone’ has the garbled gruff vocals and dowdy guitar but instead of lurching into an Industrial latrine for a swim they have the winsome melody wending through and some weird lyrics coming to the surface. (I think he’s singing, ‘it’s all about my hate’ which comes over as, it’s all about my height’!) It ends abruptly, almost comically, then ‘Clinical Hero’ lollops into gear with more grimy guitar and saucy synth work, the rhythm operating like standard eurodance bellows, squiggles aplenty alongside coyly gurgling vocals. This is conventional and daftly dramatic. ‘Qpoxb’ goes for a deeper, drilling groove with some clanking distraction and a tougher Industrial pout.
‘Afterlight’ has serene touches mixes in alongside more plaintive singing and cutely bombastic rhythmic pushes, ‘Fly’ mixes the synth and guitar well in a sterner workout, and ‘Sine of Disbelieve’ does a lopsided fairground waltz with fantastic synth patterns. ‘St. Vovka’ slips back into a fairly mild dance traipse, which is disappointing as I’d hoped it was going to ascend for a punishing close, but ‘Star Generator’ also goes for dance with glowing, piping synth notes and while very effective it wasn’t enough to hook me in.
It’s a frothy little thing really, which will appeal to people who like their dance sounds having lightly bitter twists but they sacrifice real artistic content for making too many obvious connections.
Mick Mercer