Вольному - воля (Life Never Waits)

Many people know that the USSR had its own "branch" of metal, its own "heroes" and celebrities, groups that play 20-30 concerts a month in stadiums and in huge halls and publish discs in almost millions of copies, and this - without going out to a wide the market of Europe, Japan, the USA and Australia (except for the harsh collectors, who got releases from anywhere). One of these groups, belonging to the "socialist" top league of those years, was Чёрный Кофе ("Black Coffee"), (along with such groups as "Круиз", "Ария", "Мастер", "Авгуcт" ("Cruise", "Aria", "Master", "August"), and later "Шах", "Коррозия Металла" and "Черный Обелиск" ("Shah", "Corrosion of Metal" and "Black Obelisk"). Black Coffee set the bar very high with their previous album "Переступи порог" ("Cross Over the Threshold") (which, by the way, I also wrote a review for). This album was in the top three of the national charts of the USSR for almost a whole year, adjacent to mainstream pop performers, even Cruise and Aria had a more "segment" popularity at that time. And now, the time has come for the recording and release of the next album, because of the constant touring, the pause in its recording (by the standards of the 80s, of course!) stretched out for a very long time.

I must say that over the years there have been great changes, both within the band and outside it. The line-up changed, left the lineup the genius guitarist Sergey Kudishin (R.I.P. 1993) for various reasons, including due to illness, the drummer changed, a keyboardist appeared, and the band's frontman Dmitri Varshavsky began to combine the lead vocals with the lead guitar. The band's second leader and author also remained in the group - the band's bassist Igor Kuprianov, who acted as vocalist on 3 tracks. It was the Varshavsky / Kuprianov duet that gave the group a good melodic and rhythmic balance, which was lost after Kuprianov's departure, and the later music of this group became one-vector and more boring. In addition, apparently, proceeding from the high popularity of the group and the practice of "stadium" concerts, the style of the group from high-quality heavy was changed to AOR / stadium-rock / Hard Rock, in the statistic niche from Foreigner to Bon Jovi, albeit with harder guitars and sharper vocals.

At the same time, changes took place in the band's background in this part of the world. Girls and the young mainstream audience, which in the USA may have been listening Hair-Metal, completely "moved" to disco (mainly German and local), and metalheads for the most part moved from thrash to more extreme styles (death, black, grindcore). And this is the band's decision to change the style and sound that would have been great a year after the release of the previous album, has now proved to be a failure. Of course, the entire release of the album was sold out (in conditions when the discs of Western production cost incredible money, and the catalog of the "Мелодия" studio with affordable releases in the genres of metal music did not exceed 20-25 titles).

This disc was listened to and loved by many. And they loved both "Black Coffee" and the voices of Varshavsky and Kupriyanov, but at least people under 25-30 years old did it furtively: "What are you listening to?" - "Canibal Corpse", "Napalm Death", "Morbid Angel", "Baphomet", "Suffocation", "Sodom!" (at home: puts on CDs of "Black Coffee" or "Aria"). That was the time.

What interesting can you say about the album itself? Very good (at least at the time) recording quality on the original vinyl. Glossy, expensive sound. Very good sounding vocals in the spirit of Tom Keifer (Cinderella), great catchy, hit melodies. Nothing "strange, incomprehensible". Russian-language lyrics (for a global metalhead not interested in exoticism, rather a minus, for a band in that place and at that time - a plus in terms of the interest of the main audience). All instruments are recorded very well, the voice sounds piercing, and the band itself, despite the change in style, sounds very recognizable. Dmitri Varshavsky at that time was predictably included in the top 3 best rock vocalists of the USSR. Quite good guitar parts, as well as parts of other instruments, meanwhile everything is deliberately simple, and the sound is deliberately "light".

The most powerful songs of the album are perceived at about one hit level - "Брожу по городу один" ("Roaming the City Alone"), "Вольному - воля..." "(Life Never Waits..."), "Светлый образ" ("Sacred Image"). The next group of songs - more lyrical (but not ballad) songs that are closer to the style of John Bon Jovi - "И только мы" ("And Only Us"), "После тебя" ("After You") and the song with the most bravura mood - "На последний поезд" ("The Last Train"). Also, this associative array is complemented by the not too slow ballad "Ночь" ("Night").

Separately from the whole album, there are two tracks, one of them with a plus sign, and the second with a minus sign. The "good" track is the instrumental piece "Ностальгия" ("Nostalgia"), which is a "response" to "Maybe Next Time" by Ritchie Blackmore, and the answer is quite adequate, the high bar of the original is kept. There is an "urban legend" about this composition. Everyone knows that in the USSR any information about events in rock music came with a delay and often - in an extremely distorted form, its main source was "radio voices", and not the usual press. So, there was a rumor that Ritchie Blackmore crashed in a car accident and died, and the distressed and upset Dmitri Varshavsky dedicated this instrumental to his idol. Later it turned out that everything was fine with Ritchie, and the composition was renamed "Nostalgia", and another virtuoso guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen crashed in a car - but survived. Dmitri also "dedicated" a composition to him, written later, but Yngwie would hardly have liked the way he did it.

In contrast to this composition, for which I gladly added 10 points, the album ends with the composition "Это - рок!" ("This Is Rock!"), for which I will gladly take these ten points off. It has been said many times that making rock anthems is not an easy task, and few people do it sincerely and does not turn into a parody. Immediately - an absolute failure. A song that looks more like a parody of a rock anthem than a song that unites people in a single sincere impulse. An absolutely disgusting thing that doesn't fit into this album either in mood or message, and is not a true rock anthem, but rather an unconvincing attempt to create it. This song ends the album and dampens its perception. All bands have bad luck, but the succession of bad songs for "Black Coffe" was just beginning after this album.

In general, I recommend this album to people who want to be familiar with the "main" releases of not only the British, American and German scenes, and who will not be deterred by the AOR / soft metal sound and the Russian language. This is a very good album, albeit not the best for this group and not a key one on the regional scene of that time.