Каннибал

I'm not a fan of this band, and this album doesn't fill me with wild enthusiasm, absolutely. Nevertheless I cannot but admit a certain charm of this work. There is no denying the truth: Metal Corrosion capture by making no claims to originality, they are what they are.

Ok, for the matter of that, I'll try to analyze this work. The "Cannibal" album features thrash metal: vigorous, incendiary and groovy, in many places mixed with an almost punkish recklessness – most of the songs are decorated with hooligan outcries, appropriated "to the theme under discussion". But it's about more than these cries. Calling a spade a spade, this album is filled with snark and mockery, both in music and in lyrics. What is this fraught with? Despite the fact that the riffs of the compositions are simple, if not primitive, they are very effective: first of all, they are really catchy, and most often they create, what is more important, a really evil atmosphere. But the expected "misanthropy" of the songs is somewhat weakened by the marked all-pervading mocking. At the same time, it cannot go unnoticed the band's careful approach to arranging their songs: even a "dissonant polyvocality", which is cut out for drunk karaoke ("I'm a President"), is created with an aesthetic feeling.

Right, thrash metal is the main genre of this album, but it's not very stable. Six adequate thrash metal songs can be defined here: "Motorocker" (i. e. "Outlaw Biker"), "Russian Vodka", "Cannibal", "God Father", "The Vampire's Tank", and "Crazy House" – most of them have become classics of the genre (at least in Russia). I'll have to pay attention to some of them, because they reveal really different "incarnations" of Metal Corrosion.

"Russian Vodka", without a shadow of a doubt the most famous song of the band, is a very malicious composition contrary to its lyrical content – all thanks to a primitive evil riff. And there will be no trace of the punkish roguishness, which looms in this song, if you listen to this song on vinyl. "Orchestration" at the chorus somewhat amuses this song, helps to turn it into a "drinking" one. I suppose it's valued mainly because of this "drinking essence." But listen to the riffs of this song – they are veritably evil. Vodka gives not only fun, vodka gives anger, wild malice. This is what this song says.

The fifth "God Father" is perceived even complex in structure compared to the previous thrash metal songs ("Motorocker", "Russian Vodka", "Cannibal"). However, it's not so violent as "Russian Vodka" or "Cannibal". If the previous songs are akin to South American thrash metal (early Sarcofago, Sepultura, Vulcano – note, I don't claim that Metal Corrosion were inspired by these bands, I just draw an analogy), then "God Father" is almost pure US thrash metal.

The eighth composition "The Vampire's Tank" is unusually evil track, especially the slow beginning sounds very venomous. Compared to the others, this song also has a complex structure, if the definition of "complex structure" is applied to Metal Corrosion. The ninth "Crazy House" is recorded in different conditions, and it immediately catches the ear. This is a slow and evil composition too: definitely, the slow evil passages come natural to the band. Although there are Metallica-like riffs here, the song as a whole sounds like Teutonic thrash metal, especially the passage before a solo in the second half.

I would like to draw attention to the noted aspect once again: thrash metal on this album is not monolithic or unitary at all, almost all the songs are created in different ways, and only quizzery and effrontery allow to perceive this album as a whole. Mockery is a glue, it's a cement, and this is the essence of this album. And the band itself.

It remains to deal with the second half of the material, where thrash metal is absolutely not the main point: there is by an order more mockery here. Maybe these songs should be defined as hardcore / crossover ones. In particular, the second song "I'm a President" after "Motorocker" is perceived almost like The Exploited cover. The sixth "Bad Girls Train" and the seventh "Let's Go Shake, Shake" are just funny songs and nothing more, they are suitable only for drunken dances. The best thing to hear here is Motorhead (well, it's better than hardcore / crossover). And they would not be so perky and groovy without the arrangement: it is impossible to imagine "Bad Girls Train" without a harmonica and an acoustic guitar, and "Let's Go Shake, Shake" without piano bridges. And the last eleventh track "Fuckin' Militia" is not a song at all, it's a pure mockery. It's a hooligan provocation against the police, but for a non-Russian person it sounds maybe as a bunch of idiotic grimacing voices. Anyway I must say that to release this "song" was a rather impudent prank for Russia in 1991.

Well, just one more song left: the tenth "Devil Is Here". Actually, this is a very weak song. This is some kind of not-so-successful heavy metal, if you make it a little softer, you will get a completely different band, for example, Август (August, Russian heavy metal / hard rock band), but it's simply beyond the pale. To classify this song as heavy metal is possible thanks to the manner of singing too, – Borov sings in other songs in a completely different way, let's say so. There is an acceleration in the composition, but it obviously doesn't reach the thrash metal level, if only the speed metal one. If the band's "hardcore / crossover experiments" fit into the "theme" of the entire album, then this song falls out of its context for me. Only the Pauk's wacky scream before the song saves the situation and everything falls into place – it's a mockery.

This isn't an entirely new album, since a lot of the stuff here can be found on Russian Vodka or even The Order of Satan... there are some new songs here too, of which some are good and some leave one thinking "what ... the ... fuck..."?

An example of a pretty damn good song is Eat Alive, which is really fucking fast speed-thrash... it's about 268 beats per minutes. Imagine Shah's "Killing Machine" meets Overkill "Evil Never Dies", and then they throw in a bit of Tchaikovski in the lead guitar! It's pretty fucking great. Then we have stuff like "Fucken Militia" which is just... silly. Too much random stuff that really doesn't add to the music. Stick to the thrash riffs, folks. Though at times they sound like they are running out of them, see for example "God Father" or "I'm President". It's not really bad, but some of the tendencies of mediocrity that will totally manifest themselves on Sadism are here in pretty big quantities too.

A lot of silly interludes too... I mean the little horn lead-in to "Let's Go Shake Shake" is pretty dumb (the actual song is fucking great, total Motorhead worship). Just because Communism fell and you are allowed to express yourselves freely... doesn't mean you HAVE TO.

Live songs are pretty cool, as is Russian Vodka, still a great song, same with Motorocker, but... overall the album leaves me disappointed. Not enough new stuff, and the stuff that is new tends to be weak compared to previous releases.