Kalandar (Каландар) "Домок о Шести Досок" Cassette second press!!

2nd press of 100 copies: Red tapes, regular red paper for some leftover copies - so please ignore the photo's.

Horrible Room (Russia) - Manufactured and distributed by New Era Productions

From the same fun blackened punk scene in Krasnodar, southern Russia, that gives us Pure and Tafna comes КАЛАНДАР (or Kalandar in English transliteration) whose three members come from those other two bands. The trio present their first album "ДОМОК О ШЕСТИ ДОСОК", a mighty blackened noise punk work with all the charm of a shrill chainsaw guitar orchestra and the shouty vocals to match. With КАЛАНДАР vocalist A working for Pure as well, it's no wonder the two bands sound broadly similar initially though КАЛАНДАР have a higher pitched tone and the music is faster. As might be expected with a blackened punk recording, and a debut one at that, the songs are short with most of them clocking at less than three minutes each and packing in as much bleeding-eardrum guitar noise, melodic headbanging grooves and pummelling percussion in the time they have.
Unexpectedly for a first track, the title piece takes its time applying the whirring chainsaw treatment, letting A scream himself hoarse, with a spurt of blast-beat rhythm and juddery noise string torture coming much later. True frenzied punishment comes in the second track, sweeping clean through the space between your ears with slashing, paint-stripping noise drone, screeching voice and thundering drums. Follow-up "СМЕРТЬ В СЕРЕДИНЕ ЛЕТА \ У ХРИСТА ЗА ПАЗУХОЙ" turns out to be quite a varied track with changes in the rhythm and pacing, and much demented instrumental destruction happening in the second half of the song.
The trio parcel out further mistreatment in six measured punchy doses, starting with "КАЛИ ЮГА РОК & РОЛЛ" – I don't need crappy Google English translations to know that says "Kali Yuga Rock and Roll" – a true battering ram of punky melodic groove and more of the more distinctive and catchy songs on the album, along with a sing-along chorus. Screaming rants, furious tom-tom aggression and blasting rock'n'roll guitar noise with droning feedback and near-danceworthy melodies being carved out of it - КАЛАНДАР dish it out in spades. Out of this second lot of songs, I single out "МЫТАРСТВА" as the best, this one being a sludge doom variation on the band's usual noisy modus operandi with A singing from somewhere deep in a mineshaft and the music dominated by a seesawing bass drone melody that crumbles into oblivion. There's enough variety though in these six blasters to keep most listeners happy and it's really a matter of personal taste as to which songs stand out more.

The recording whizzes by fast and listeners might find themselves hitting "play" again though they know their ears and brain cells won't thank them for doing this – behind the aggression, the ranting and the noise is one giant package of enthusiasm and electricity in infectiously blackened rock-pop melodies and grooves. There's some experimentation with sound and atmosphere on later tracks that gives listeners an idea of the band's potential, that lets people know there's more to КАЛАНДАР than just noisy shouty short songs. Perhaps on a later recording the trio might surprise us with more complex music in sound and structure but I think the band as it is, is good for a couple of albums at least.

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