Мания величия

This debut album - the Russian name means "Megalomania" in English - by Russian band Ariya is not bad at all: sure, there are strong influences from Judas Priest and Iron Maiden among others, especially in the singing and some of the music, but the songs are well written and played. Sometimes the music even surpasses the originals in style, subject matter and inspiration! Most songs have distinct toe-tapping melodies and lead guitar solos that rip up the fretboard and almost set it alight. As the album continues, there are inevitable moments where it falls into poodle-rock territory and the arrival of synthesiser on some tracks does put the fear of schmaltz polish into a self-respecting metal-head’s soul, but apart from one song in the middle, most tracks are not long and the musicians keep everything restrained. By the time the last couple of tracks are on the horizon, the early fire has long since settled into warm-hearth mode and only occasional sparks of lead guitar riffing give any indication of what these guys are capable of.

For what's basically a home recording – the band members recorded this album in their own studio/s, and one has to bear in mind the political / social context in which Ariya were writing, recording and performing where Western cultural influences were at best frowned upon and actively discouraged by government authorities; even Soviet rock bands that were active in the 1970s often could not release their material until the 1990s, after the Soviet regime had fallen – the production is not bad though it’s basic. Indeed the lack of polish adds a much-needed tough quality to the songs, especially those songs coming later in the album that aspire to the operatic (the title track) and the overblown (“Mechty”).

It’s a bit of a shame that at the time the band did not have a very clear musical identity of its own: the guys slip from Judas Priest through Iron Maiden and the Scorpions and back again, and sometimes I even hear 1980s Queen. I have heard one other recording from Ariya and it seems significant that, like this debut, it starts with a track most like Judas Priest and then goes into something more like generic melodic hard rock with no clear identity: get people's attention with whatever sounds most current and which is well regarded by metal fans in the West, and use that to interest people in your own material. But given the difficult conditions in which Ariya were operating, where even acquiring musical instruments and decent recording equipment was hard, much less being able to perform music with lyrics that did not fit official Soviet propaganda norms, the fact that this band was able to match the best metal bands the West had to offer is nothing short of amazing.