Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The Russian Bear has long stirred from its slumber and is now making waves into British and European airspace. Not the tidal wave of politics or the heart-stopping aim of ideals clashing for pointless domination but instead the beauty of Heavy Rock. The unifying force that lays in wait for all who take their music one step closer to the edge but who also know how step away from pulling the bass string trigger when the going gets explosive and they don’t come much more explosive than Grenouer and their new album, Unwanted Today.
It has to be said that the new wave of Metal and Rock coming out of Russia is verging on the extraordinary; so many bands who have woken up and tasted a particular type of freedom that was denied their predecessors, the forefathers and the older siblings looking on surely in anxious pride as they remember what it was like under a different regime and the music being played regulated and controlled. Now the music on offer is still controlled but by the musician and the thought of a guitar being able to say what was unsaid for far too long.
It is to be applauded that the music on Unwanted Today is stirring, forceful and packs more of a punch than Illya Kuryakin when riled but also the sense of honesty and neglect seep through as if the abandoned child of past glories had found its way to the scene of its desertion and allowed to grow angry and feel the oncoming rage that is rightfully theirs.
The tracks are meaty, full of aggression and deep candour which one can only approve of and enjoy with utter conviction and in tracks such as A Little Too Obsessed, Blossoms In The Dust, Daily Miracles and Don’t Let Them (Get You Down) that conviction is unwavering, total and complete.
For a band to record an album in a tongue not of their own is to be congratulated and seen as a progressive step that many might to hard an angle to conquer but for Grenouer the translation is faultless and adds a certain charm which makes them very much wanted, very much needed and truly appreciated; Unwanted Today? Not on this showing! Outrageously cool.
Ian D. Hall