What can we tell you about Aybat Hallar? They’re Russian, they list Bad Religion, Tom Waits and Slade in their influences and they seem to have a bit of a zombie fixation as most of their artwork is 80’s skate-punk influenced cartoons of dead and/or dying things. They REALLY like feedback. They all have “identical tattoos on a breast”, although it’s not clear whether they all share this breast and who owns it. Oh and incidentally they’re pretty good.
Their absolutely mind-bendingly bizarre mixture of influences is evident throughout their music as rumbling Rancid bass lines snake underneath Arctic Monkey’s lead guitar lines before a drum fill segues into an Iron Maiden riff assault on ‘Strike Back’. There’s a similarity to Millencolin and Guana Apes in parts that might just stem from the foreign twinge on the English vocals, but Aybat Hallar are actually at their best when singing in Russian and going completely balls out on the completely unpronounceable but suitably unstoppable ‘гемеррои на теле челевечецтве’, which is an absolute juggernaut assault on the senses.
Mostly they pull this insanity together and make it work, though there are some clangers on this album; emulating US skate punk on ‘Doomsday At The Dirty O’ falls very short of the mark with its oddly out of place references to American culture and trips to the mall, although top marks are awarded for an excellent Sick Of It All impression on ‘Everything Is Going According To Plan’.
‘Something Nice’ is an interesting example of how punk has travelled the globe, and at its worst does a solid job of standing up next to its US contemporaries. At its better moments it’s a promising look at emerging talent from the Eastern alternative scene, which is really starting to find its feet with some bands with real potential.
JAMIE OTSA