After throwing the first look on the cover, my mind had only one thought left — how old was the author who had drawn it (apparently during the intermissions between school)? A head hewed by two axes, a candlestick nearby, apparently a cross behind, a fire below, something is guttering, every single thing is black-and-white and screams amateurism and naive silly pathos. All in all a complete disaster. Everything became clear after looking inside — staring at me from the photo were the five high-school oriented individuals. After scratching my badly unshaven melon a bit, I continued spreading the insert and to my joy (later — to horror), I found the lyrics, three songs in Russian and two in English. Refraining myself from the temptation, I continued my detailed investigation of the insert and stumbled upon the track-list. I saw that one of the tracks on the album is a cover of Carcass’ «Child’s Play», albeit printed with a mistake for some reason. Frowning, I guessed that the band members are probably huge fans of this English threesome (and later foursome). Even the name of the album instantly arouses strong reminiscences with Carcass’ «Carneous Cacoffiny». Still, I decided to finally read the lyrics before listening to the music. This is where the first surprises began.

Two things that caused hysterical laughter to shake the room in which the listening was held were the bloodcurdling amount of the mistakes in English lyrics and quite non-trivial content of Russian ones. Two texts in Russian are touching religious matters and it’s almost impossible to follow them. Dazed by bewilderment, trying to understand who’s the dimwit — them or me, I proceeded to read the third one that simply finished me off. Gore-lyrics in Russian are generally quite an amusing thing, but this one could’ve been written only after a serious hangover. Just look at this: «she wishes to die and it’s clear not everybody can stand the suffering». One may have the impression that one imbecilic child is explaining something to another one. And how about this: «purulent jelly is spurting and splashing». When I stopped laughing after reading it, I was dying to ask the band a question: guys, have you ever seen a jelly? Can you imagine yourselves a spurting and splashing jelly? What gastronomic ejaculation is this? But wait, it’s not the funniest thing, my pal incredulously snickers, reading the following: «I deprave with her vomit». Finally, to consummate the debacle of the listener, here comes: «my dick is piercing her larynx» (apparently, the continuation of the ancient Greek epos traditions), after which «I lick her fetid tongue». Methinks that such a unique dude should be performing in the circus, in lieu of acrobats. I don’t even mention stuff like «I fuck the vomit. Piercing rotten slush with my dick», because what can be said about it except that a food mixer is far more convenient thing to use in this case than one’s reproductive organ. Speaking about English lyrics, well, things went totally awry here. Let’s quote some stuff: «see the voices of your god» (I thought that you can only hear voices), «know he used to damage», «It is filling your like gain», «Well begin this / Experience», «Why is he / Become blue», «Shit, I’ve got dirty» (it’s so tempting to say «hey Beavis, I’ve shit my pants, he-he!»), «Operation finished well / Patient die», and other stuff. But what made me literally tremble with laughter was the following phrase: «I’m still listened her screams». All told, what gladdens is that all this stuff is practically indecipherable aurally during the listening because the vocalist, who uses both growls and screams, goes into «enunciation = off» mode right in the beginning of the tape and lazily snarls, which results in vocal parts resembling nostalgic flashbacks of a crippled walrus during a fervent delirium fit.

The music… wow, this is something. Somewhat grindish start with a hollow, amateurish sound and tin guitars forebode nothing unusual, maybe except for the guitar sound that is notably strange, as if they were recorded through a microphone. Speaking about the positive sides of the album, I should note the high level of instrument handling, the drawback being the impression that their school principal prohibited them from playing too loud. The music itself is quite good, though somewhat naive, but the guys should mess a lot more with guitar tuning and general mix. The second track starts and I can’t believe my ears — have you ever heard Ariya [Russian Iron Maiden rip-off —AK] with death-metal vocals? The music is so cheery, major and pop-like (in terms of melody and harmony) that the idea that it is nothing more than a big joke crawled into my morbid head. Appraising the originality of the music, I wasn’t anticipating some sort of boy-scout march on the third track. After I acquainted myself with the amenities of crossing such a musical stunt with an «aryan» death metal, I eventually made it to the fifth track which was mixed so badly that the bass muffles everything else, and the guitars almost can not be heard at all. I took a deep breath and decided to hear what have these guys done with Carcass’ «Child’s Play». The cover turned out to be made on garage band’s level, indistinctly, without Carcass’ harsh groove and without anything special.

Thinking about the good starts and the bad ends, I decided to be completely consistent and listen to the last song, pathetically called «Dying Endlessly», in hope that it won’t be similar to the jail ambience courtesy of prison supervisors’ favorite pet Varg Vikernes. I was almost right. The song is decent, that’s sure, but after a couple of minutes, one really wants to fast-forward the tape to the «a little farther» area, especially after discovering that the central theme is playing not in the center but somewhere aloof. This precipitated me in a devout horror — couldn’t the musicians find the man who comprehends the niceties of music mixing at least a bit? If the guys will decently tune their instruments, find a good sound engineer, and hammer away the repertoire in a good way, they might have a quite bright future, because the potential of the band is quite great. And, of course, a good lyricist is desperately needed; without him (or her) all efforts will be in vain. The idea of playing the crossover of death metal and Russian heavy metal with extreme vocals is interesting, but it needs decent implementation. Clangforge made a fair try, let’s see what they will do next time.

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