Языческие боги

I guess it's curiosity that made me check out Korrozia Metalla's seventh full-length record entitled Pagan Gods. The band had started as a pioneer underground speed and thrash metal band recalling groups such as Venom and had then slowly shifted towards an experimental punk sound with patriotic topics and at times even disgustingly racist lyrics. The previous release Computer-Hitler had offered a weird but entertaining mixture from country songs over grindcore to military march music. Pagan Gods sounds much less experimental and much more streamlined. It offers simplistic mid-paced to up-tempo punk rock.

There are several elements that really drag this album down. The most obvious element are the often heavily distorted vocals such as in the nerve-firing ''The Baptized'' that is decent musically with a few solid riffs and brief solos that are dragged down by heavily annoying vocal effects. The production is another issue. Some people might call it an authentic underground production but it really just is a quite unbalanced affair with thin guitar sounds but extremely loud vocals that are at times inducing headaches. Another element one can't ignore are the more and more nasty lyrics with the ugliest offender being ''Niger'' that sounds like a vintage track of The Ramones with a few drunk hooligans performing vulgar vocals over it. The worst song of the bunch is however ''Eye Doctor Albert Krause'' which is a mixture of very badly performed rap parts, comedic radio play passages, childishly uplifting melodies, adult movie sound samples, odd bits of heavily mispronounced German lyrics and random guitar solos. The band's failed attempt at humor might be the most cringe-worthy thing I have ever heard and since I'm living in Quebec I have come across countless terrible comedians.

Everything that made Korrozia Metalla a pioneer band for extreme metal music in Russia seems to be gone in the new millennium. The odd predecessor had at least a weird entertaining value. Pagan Gods is however just a lazy potpourri of tracks that have mostly been previously released on EPs and that can be described as under-produced punk rock with nerve-firing vocals meandering between offensively racist and oddly silly lyrics. The laughable album cover that seems to be drawn by a poorly skilled ten-year old is the cherry on the cake of this despicable coaster. It's a shame that a band with such initial talent, style and promise threw away its promising elements to release nerve-firing racist rock music a whopping five years after its last official full length effort that had already been a letdown. Sitting through this entire record was an ungrateful affair, so do yourself a favor and don't listen to Pagan Gods as long as you're not a pitiless masochist or a drunk racist. If a xenophobic incarnation of Ed Wood had been a musician instead of a filmmaker, he would have released something like this. That's how bad Pagan Gods really is.