Men in Metal (Мужчины в металле)
Let The Soul Spread Its Wings (Пусть душа расправит крылья)

It was a surprisingly positive experience last time I heard a Russian band, Aria’s recent album was rather good I have to say. Now chance has fallen upon another Russian band, they call themselves Men in Metal, silly name, and I have been listening to their album for a few times now. And it is an album that offers classic heavy metal with elements of ethnic music, with ukulele, with touches of the seventies and things like that – still a heavy metal at heart but with some silly additions. And it has a silly artwork as well, but what about the album then? Is it any good?

It is metal sung in Russian, and as we all know Russian isn’t a very lyrical language – I think that it is one of the uglier languages spoken in the world. Not that my native Swedish is beautiful either but a lot better than Russian. Anyway, that can give an exotic feel using a language not too often used in albums released in my part of the world. Like it did for Aria, but here I am less sure. The music feels fairly standard heavy metal with several weirder additions but the album is built on the heavy metal foundation and feels a tad on the longer side. I don’t think that the singer is too good either, the sound is okay and some of the songs are catchy but more diversity wouldn’t have hurt it.

More depth would have been good as well. The fact is that this album is a rather boring album, not just because the vocals sounds like something from a toilet but also because the songs aren’t very good. The band should have some credit for trying some less ordinary things but when you fail to match that with extraordinary songs you still end up being boring, like I think these guys are. This album does nothing for me. I struggle to find positives about it, it feels like a chore to listen through it and in the end I have to remain unimpressed. It just isn’t a fun album.

In the end I can’t really say much positive about these men in the metal genre, they don’t really offer anything exciting and their music is boring. Perhaps you will like it if you enjoy the Russian language or just overall have a fondness for the Russian things; otherwise I am not really sure you will get anything out of this album. Sure it isn’t awful or anything, it is just boring and the best thing you can to if you are considering this album is to consider another album.

HHHHHHH