BEST SONGS: “Japonsky Gorodovoj (Japanese Policeman),” “Otpusti Menja (Set Me Free),” “Ne Baluj (Don’t Fool Around)”

While not particularly heavy or intricate, this album is a collection of some of the catchiest moments in Russian-language rock music. The songs just flat out rock! Naumov’s voice is one of the most powerful I’ve ever heard, and he doesn’t have to scream to sound menacing. The sound is not overly heavy, but the songs are driving enough to make you headbang without reservation, and the occasional use of traditional Russian instruments (“gooslee”) adds flavor. The lyrics are quite good and fresh, anthemic yet with a healthy dose of humor. It takes a couple of tracks to fully get the album going (the first two tracks are merely decent), but starting with “Japanese Policeman” (an old Russian expression, similar to the British “Judas Priest,” a substitute for a curseword), commenting on possible Japanese expansion into Russia, the band fires on all cylinders. “Bermudy (The Bermudas)” is a reference to an enormously popular 1976 ballad by Vladimir Vysotsky, and it rocks. “Set Me Free” is a stellar power ballad (with some heavy parts), a true epic. “Don’t Fool Around” is this album’s highest point: a charging political anthem, the likes of which were last heard in Russia some fifteen years ago. It is followed by a stellar metal rendition of another Vysotsky’s song, “Strannye Skachki (The Strange Race),” a mid-paced thumper “Na Ostrove Booyan (The Booyan Island),” and an album-concluding bitter “Nedetsky Pafos (The Grim Pathos).” Will you like it, if you don’t speak Russian? In all honesty, the lyrics fit the music and the vocals very well, and this fit is what makes this album special. But Naumov’s vocals alone are such a treat that one must give hunting this album down a serious consideration.