Russian Vodka

Here I was thinking – “fuck yeah they re-released this”, but no – this turned out to be a compilation of the band’s later…more racist material. Still for $20 this was a fucking bargain because it includes over an hour of live footage from Korrozia’s performance at “Metal March” festival, March 30-31 1990 whose track-list (is not listed in the booklet) is something like this:

Bad Girls Train (intro)
SPID
…something (fragment from some movie shoot)
Crazy House
Russian Vodka (fragment - Rock on the Barricades event)
I’m President
Tank of the Vampire
Russian Vodka (fragment w/ gratuitous tits)
Kiss of Devil
Russian Vodka (video clip? also w/ tits)
Thrash Around Kremlin (fragment – in studio)
Bloody Mary
Eat Alive (video clip) – w/ Russian folk instruments live!!
Lucifer
Untitled (pretty sure it’s “Fuck the Militia”)
Drunken jam at the “Hard Rok Kafe” (Cannibal launch)
Cannibal
Bad Girls Train (clip, studio recordings)
Motorocker
Iron Man – credits (Black Sabbath – fragment)

There is a lot of nudity, vodka and smashing TVs and pianos with zombies, Klansmen and naked women cavorting on stage. It’s a really a lot of fun, done in a completely tasteless style of early 90’s Russian rock video using every conceivable stupid visual effect in their arsenal. As I have mentioned before there is a lot of nudity. The moon-faced Russian chicks in leather jackets chatting with the lanky guitarist – yes.

The compilation disk comes from Korrozia’s late 90’s-2000’s releases such as “White Wolves” and “Pagan Gods” that came after the “1966” album. Only a few songs such as the s/t and “Black Terror” come from the early albums featuring the classic 80’s lineup. This new stuff is pretty good though – dynamic, still very thrashy and benefiting from modern production and recording technology, but the focus is very much towards the extreme right – no wonder this comes out on a label like Vinland Winds. Still songs like “Kill the Sunarefa”, “Freedom or Death” (speak Russian or die, this is our country – fuck off!), “Russia Without Shit” and others are controversially catchy and good to bop around to. Forget Vandal – this is the real shit. A guilty pleasure that this is, I would recommend this disk to those interested in some classic Russian thrash metal icon’s later output – but remember the pre 1992 stuff is where Korrozia’s really at.

And of course there’s the 1990-1 footage which is a fascinating document of a unique time where Soviet rock was just let out of the dungeon and burst out onto stadiums to play grotesquely insane shows.

Originally published in Procession of Black Doom zine #4