Orgia Pravednikov - For Those Who Can See Dreams Vol 1 (ELCD 062) 

 

 

This album is something of a shift, a radical one at that, for Electroshock - renowned for their experimental and avant-garde electronic music, this is a full-blooded rock album. In fact, For Those Who Can See Dreams is a prog-rock-metal album with a big, big sound. Orgia Pravednikov remind me a little of the Slovenian band Laibach, perhaps not so electronic but with a huge, punchy sound, basso-profundo vocals, metal guitars, brass section and a lot more. The band consist of five members but there is an army of guest musicians and vocalists spread across the ten tracks. The vocals are sung in Russian but the inlay booklet provides a translation and I think the album is themed around a concept of Teutonic Knights searching for a route to the northern land of Hyperborea. Then again I may be wrong and it could be about pushing through the barriers of accepted conformity. Whatever, this is one hell of a great album, probably the best rock album I have heard in a long time - there are great tunes with melodic hooks, big guitar sound - I really loved the epic Catcher in the Rye. There are also softer songs, with delicate flutes - check out White On White to hear what I mean. The band are: Sergey Kalugin - vocals, guitar; Alex Burkov - guitars, mandolin, keyboards, percussion, vocals; Yuriy Ruslanov - flutes, guitar, percussion, vocals; Artemiy Bondarenko - bass, keyboards, guitar, percussion, vocals; Alexander Vetkhov - drums. As you can see there are a lot of multi-instrumentalists there, and that flexibility helps to build up each track into these giant slabs of sound. This is a powerful album, I could see Orgia Pravednikov taking on Metallica and beating them hands down. For Those Who Can See Dreams is probably the best rock album to ever come out of Russia and it needs to be heard in the west - this should be on the playlist for Q Radio, Planet Rock and even BBC6. It needs maximum publicity and radio play to find the rock fans who will love it. Highly recommended.