Over the past few years an increasing number of bands hailing from the former USSR have been appearing on the screens and the phones of the so-called Western world’s underground music enthusiasts.
With most of them being pretty obscure and only a very few ones having established a worldwide following (Motorama, Molčat Doma) the Sovietwave tag has worked usefully enough as a tool to identify a wide range of bands each one with a different sound and yet something in common. Whether it be the harsh weather or just the distance creating an exotic effect, there is some icy-cold touch with these bands that immediately makes you know they’re from Russia, regardless of the language they perform.
This goes for Blind Seagull too.
The trio from Kaliningrad, a small russian enclave on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania, has been around since quite a few years now, releasing tapes and limited edition vinyls on labels like Detriti, Sierpen and Pine Hill.
Finally taking up the challenge of writing a longer full-length (previous albums were seven or eight track long at best), the trio led by Denis Zarubin has created twelve new songs that shine a light on the impressive skills of this young combo to deliver very classic and yet extremely fresh and modern cold post-punk gems.
Keeping it short and sweet, their two-three minutes long compositions cut right to the chase of the darkwave soul: stomping drum machines, frozen guitar arpeggios, tense bass riffs. The formula is occasionally rocked by the intervention of laser synths, noise raids and gothic chorale, while the industrial pièce of the title-track and the IDM-tinged collaboration with experimental giants Xiu Xiu ‘Fear’ will show how this band stands out and how their upcoming, new album is the best proof of this.
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