Облачный Край - "X-я самодеятельность" [1983]

Artist: Облачный Край

Title: X-я самодеятельность

Genre: Hard'n'Heavy, Folk Rock, Punk & a little bit of everything

Country: USSR

Release date: 1983

Track List:

1. Интро
2. Члены коллекции (Я меломан)
3. Заздравная
4. Русская народная
5. Любовь к жизни
6. Пни (Ода бюрократу)
7. Финал 

Облачный Край (Cloudy Land) were one of the first USSR bands to incorporate some elements of heavy metal into their music, and generally a very unorthodox band who were ahead of their time (they even played something resembling krautrock on their early albums, while this style was almost completely unknown in the USSR back then). Formed in 1978 in Arkhangelsk, initially as a garage rock band "Мертвые Уши" ("Dead Ears") by a group of teenagers, they were active at least until 2011, when their founding member Sergey Bogaev passed away. They also were one of the first USSR bands to destroy their instruments on live shows (if memory serves, their guitarist broke a cheap guitar while being on stage at some rock festival in 1986, causing a scandal).

The story of the band started circa 1976, when Sergey Bogaev (a schoolboy back then) found out about Deep Purple and Rainbow, and decided to become a hard rocker himself. In 1978, he and his teenage friends Nikolay & Igor Lyskovsky and Oleg Rautkin finally decided to start a band, but they didn't have any instruments back then, except one acoustic guitar. This, however, didn't stop them from using primitive homemade instruments, and the result turned out to be surprisingly listenable. They've recorded two albums during 1978-80, which were remastered and released on CD in 2009.

In early 1982, they got acquainted with the members of Aquarium, one of the leading USSR rock bands back then, who were really suprised at the quality of their music played with such primitive instruments and equipment. This gave them the motivation to turn the band into something more serious. They've recorded 3 albums under their new name during 1982, still with low quality of production and mostly satirical lyrics, but that surely was a major step forward in their carrer.

This album was recorded an year later, shortly before they relocated to Leningrad from Arkhangelsk. 32 years later, it got a quite positive review on metal-archives.com, although I'm not sure if it can be considered metal. It's rather a little bit of everything: Pink Floyd- and Deep Purple-inspired hard rock with a lot of keyboards, very "punkish" sarcastic-sounding vocals and lots of folk melodies. They never took themselves too seriously (which is clearly seen from their lyrics, which are mostly satirical), but nevertheless, this recording is quite enjoyable even in 2015.

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