Человек со шрамом

This is actually supposed to be a single…for the song “The Man with the Scar,” supposedly, with tracks 6-9 added to push the playing time up to the length of an album. Whilst the “new” material here is mostly rubbish, this disk is worth some attention because of the live tracks.

What you’ll have here, then is the single itself – The Man… / Doctor... which are punk songs. That’s right, not thrash, but fairly catchy punk with shouted voiceovers and stupid, stupid lyrics. Track 3, which actually translates closer to “My Brain is a Computer” is a weird sad tune, still more fitting closer to the punk genre but with odd Satanic lyrics, courtesy, of - I am guessing – Pauk. The band tries to remain “actualnaya” which is an adaptation from English meaning “aware of current affairs” with “Rap is Shit.” Good work, I suppose, but a horrible, pointless song whose idea, not the song itself is only mildly amusing. The band is heard to rap some insults, between repeatedly chanting the title. “Venus” is a short, throw-away acoustic number. Ugh.

After the mostly forgettable first part, this album actually gets pretty good at track 6. Being a live recording from their tour of the Crimeria that year, supposedly to advocate its reunification with Russia (long story), it has a long introduction by a veteran of several “hot spots” plaguing Russia and its borders at the time. Roughly, this is what he says:

“Salutations! Do you like war?...(the crowd responds, some “yes”, some “no”)…But war likes you! You know why?...Because you are all soldiers of the 3rd World War! It’s coming!...Over there in Chechnia there is a tank with “Pauk” written on it. It has received 5 hits and is still running…Remember; when it’s over we shall have a new order. You know what sort of order? The Russian Order!”

Hmm. The band proceeds with an especially quick and brutal version of “Death to Sunarefa” and then a blistering-fast SPID. The recordings are a bit murky (lower in quality than on “Debosh…”) but still clear enough to hear what’s happening. Don’t expect any discernable solos though…The performance is so good in fact that even the silly “Hold the Train” sounds fairly decent. The disk closes with a rendition of “Lucifer,” a great song in the vein of Motorhead and Venom. Together with the hyperspeed SPID and “Death…,” it makes this disk more or less worthwhile, although far from perfect.