KOLIBRI
Find Ten Differences
Triarii
1995
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The recently released album is, indeed, quite different (I would say, advantageously different)
from the previous two... Although I didn't manage to count exactly
ten differences,
there may have been three or four that immediately caught my attention.
First, the quality of sound and arrangements. Not much is left from the home-made feel of Kolibri's earlier recordings; everything sounds cool and clear. No keyboard disasters, over-emphasized instrumental lines or other tricks like that. Second, they finally managed to design a very cute cover. Speaking of music (and stopping counting - I didn't really mean four when I said four), Kolibri's achievements are simply shocking. To tell you the truth, a good half of the album could very well be considered a masterpiece. (Here I would like to immediately exclude one song though. What's that "Negro on the bus" thing ? Note that in Russian, this word does NOT have ANY negative connotations. Still, what's the deal with it ? The song is terribly catchy, in the worst sense - I just can't stand it. The voice sounds as if it belongs to a soloist of a choir affiliated with the local house of pioneer youth. Well, anyway, fast forward, not a big deal.) There are a whole bunch of songs more worthwhile of talking about. Right from the first title up to "The Wave" (Volna) they go, one after another. Then, something interesting, but a little raw - about confused God. Followed by the racist disaster mentioned above (just kidding!). Followed, in turn, by a sequence of songs I like but can't say much about. They are just nice. And, all of a sudden - BAAH! - another masterpiece ("The wind wanders by the sea"). The song, with its accelerating intro and narcissic sirenic voices, deserves top marks. The albums is completed with a handful of very likable songs, including one near-masterpiece (as far as I am concerned, anyway). Quoting some other reviewer, the last few songs can put anyone in a good mood. Works fine for me, for which I'd like express my gratefulness to "Kolibri". Just wanted to mention one more drawback which, strictly speaking, doesn't have anything to do with the band. Who the hell came up with this "brilliant" idea of releasing a cassette version of the album with a bunch of songs crudely torn out and others moved around so that nobody understands what song is called what? Those of us who bought tapes were soon to figure out they'd still need to buy a CD and probably felt cheated.. Anyways, this is a really unrelated comment, so I will proceed to the summary from here.
Summarizing, I would say that the album puts "Kolibri" in an entirely
different league of influential Russian bands, whose music does not
belong to some short period of time but has permanent value. In
other words, the album is great and will be listened to for years
to come...
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Russian Independent Music