¡Forward Russia!

Life Processes

(Mute)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

No soft intro here. No time for the listener to ease into the sound. We're hit straight away with indie sonic guitar mayhem, frustrated and frantic. Operatic high vocals that soar shrill above the blur of rhythm. The songs hit hard and steady, pulling in the same sounds, but turning them in slightly different directions. I hear hints of strange bands in here, probably just my ears, but there’s a little chaos that reminds me of McLusky, little beats that makes me think of the White Rose Movement, and some high pitched indie dance breakdowns that make me cringe slightly as I’m hit with bad Panic! at the Disco flashbacks. Thankfully Forward Russia (or – more specifically, “¡Forward, Russia!”) manages to move beyond those sounds that I can’t help but attach to other bands. It’s not their fault I listen to too much music.

There is a strong sense of a concept album under construction here. A sonic flow moves like scattered, fractured tides across some post-prog landscape that is broken up with touches of jarring no wave guitar strangulations and stop-start heartbeats that push certain songs into the ever-expanding post-punk section of your favorite record store. Then there are some dynamic and more punk touched crashes, like At The Drive-In hitting some early emo chords, and I mean like Christie Front Drive / Giants Chair early, not that stuff the kids are calling emo these days.

Tom Woodhead’s vocals swerve and soar tight around the high tight guitar strings, keeping the band from falling to close to anything else you might be thinking about. Merging and meshing with the heavy steady and deeper registers of the Katie Nicholls / Rob Canning Drum and Bass routine, the guitars stroke, strum, coax, and scream the energy out and through you as you move through the songs. Each one keeping you on the edge of your seat and wondering just what’s going to happen next. This album is edgy enough to keep the hipsters happy, but they manage to get enough of a groove moving underneath that it’ll also attract the ears of the kids who just want to kick back and have some fun.