I’ll start with a personal question.: How do you deal with stress? I really appreciate the small joys of life. Small joys, such as a successful concert or a good record, can have a truly healing effect. Released at the end of 2022, the live album by the Tula band Stressor combines both of these examples.
I will continue to talk about modern Russian saykobilly, released in the current decade of troubles. Unlike the dungeon lords I mentioned earlier, Stressor are real titans from the early nineties. Formed in 1993, the Stressors immediately identified themselves as old-school psychobilly, and this is extremely true for today’s record. After a creative break at the beginning of the century, the first record Russia’N’ROLL was released in 2007, which collected the band’s early Russian-language material, including the band’s first hit “I’ll Burn Everything”, which glorified the Stressors on local radio. This is a very interesting record that combines a sycophantic sound with a gentle romance, somewhere between authentic rockabilly and the work of the bands Bravo and Secret.
Then a turn to the west was carried out and the band’s further work became English-speaking. By the end of the noughties, the Tulyaks were able to conquer Europe by releasing two records on the German label Crazy Love Records: Burn Out! and Red Hot Rocket, 2008 and 2009 respectively. Also in 2009, Stressors shared the Parisian stage with psychotic mastodons Batmobile, King Kurt and Coffin Nails.
In the second decade of the century, a couple more albums were released: Trip To Mad City (2012) and No More Panic (2014). That was the end of the full-length albums, as well as the end of Russian friendship with European countries. In 2019, the singles Optical Illusion and my favorite Cannibal Fish were released. And so, in 2022, a live album is being released, which I will tell you about today. It was recorded a year and a half earlier, on April 24, 2021, during that nostalgic post-covid period. Yes, it wasn’t all terrible this year. And in general, music is stronger than any wars. This is especially significant in St. Petersburg. The band is still actively performing, at least in its native Tula and Moscow. And they were in the St. Petersburg Game the year before last.
The legendary Fish Fabrique Club on Ligovsky Prospekt is a cozy place. More “Damn it” on Duma and less Mod Club, The feature is saturated with the spirit of a bohemian alley, a place for your own, but open to anyone who understands what and how. There’s not much space, and the capacity is extremely small: no more than a hundred people can fit in. And that’s actually a good thing, because saykobilly is music for connoisseurs, and more than a hundred saykobilly in one place is a disaster claim.
I have the same story with this album as with last year’s White Bison concert — this is my first serious acquaintance with the band’s work. The fact is that full-format albums of the noughties are not legally available on domestic platforms. Even in the official VK group, these are man-made playlists. Such is the intricacy of copyright and sanctions policy. However, this is not the first time this has happened: the same St. Petersburg Looney Boppers did not appear on domestic streaming services for no political reason.
The album begins with a minute-long Burn Out opener! turning into a wild provocative Hit The Pig. Not what you think! This song is about the wonderful Angry Birds mobile game. Do you remember this one? Well, in 2014, where the original album song came from, it was more relevant. I like the live version much more. Surprisingly, it is much better in terms of sound recording and mixing, and the arrangement is practically the same. And why should she be different? Such obsessive choruses are still to be found!
By the way, if we talk about the sound of the band, it does not require any discounts, such as “let’s support our own”. Everything is very serious and definitely not worse than the leading European old-schoolers.
Laced with the screams of the listeners, the next track is Let’s Go! It is also an album opener. This time it’s the 2012 album Trip To Mad City. On the album version, I like the sticking-out sound of the rhythm section a little more, but otherwise the concert is not inferior. The song ends with a welcoming speech by Andrey Rublev, officially opening the concert. I’m my own entertainer, this and that.
Stressors obviously know a lot about choruses! Optical Illusion is guaranteed to keep you humming for a very long time. Originally from the single of the same name, the live version discards vocal special effects, bringing Andrei Klepikov’s guitar moves to the fore.
I am skeptical that Stress is sometimes attributed to neo-rockabilly, but Bye Bye Love dispels such skepticism. Much more relaxed and cheerful than the previous tracks, this Everly Brothers cover version charges with positive vibes. The studio version sounds more aggressive.
The intro of Love Me is reminiscent of The Norton Spirit by The Blue Cats. However, the similarities end there.: It’s a much more combative and certainly crazier song, reminiscent of the work of the Batmobile Dutch. Less theatrical than The Cramps, more rigid and collected.
No More Panic from the album of the same name is much more lively here than the studio version, and this accelerated tempo makes the song much more frenzied.
From the second English-language studio album, Red Hot Rocket returns to the rockabilly side, starting with classic vocal inserts. The concert version definitely wins in terms of sound, and it’s not just about live energy and all that. Tula’s early studio albums sound very strange. It’s so strange that the versions from the record under consideration today sound much more standard. Perhaps the fact that the early records are not available on streaming is not the fault of sanctions from the Germans.
And then we are greeted by the real hit 200 Bones. The hitness of this song is again hidden in the chorus, and specifically in the vocal melody. It is absolutely impossible to underestimate her beauty, intertwined with guitar busting and double bass clicking.
Ominous chords open I‘m Mad At You. No, this is not a Batmobile, but an original piece by Stressor from the first English-language album in 2008. There’s a very interesting guitar part in this song, swapping the traditional stealthy riff for those creepy chords.
Everything is ambiguous with Mad City. I think of this song as something very calm, if you take a closer look at the studio version. And that’s why the Crazy City is perceived as something wrong. The performance is wonderful, but it’s like the vividness doesn’t really suit this song. I want to hear it in a cozy privacy.
So we got to my favorite Cannibal Fish! And… there’s a similar story here. This one is already incredibly wild and fast, and there’s even more of it alive. And in the end it turns out too wild. Although the voice from the audience at the end of the track gave a much more comprehensive description, and I do not intend to argue with him.
Full of Zombies is a very interesting deception. Did you think Stressors would give you a song to take a break from superluminal speeds? They messed with the wrong people. Like the walking dead from modern horror movies, they are slow only at first glance! Moreover, then she seamlessly switches to a Bang song, which is much more pleasant for me. The secret of her attractiveness, once again, is in the stunning chorus.
Have you ever tried to be sad quickly? I mean, literally running away from mental suffering? Well, or ride a bike away from them? And that the rain beat in the face with a cold shower. These are the associations that Rain evokes – one of the most beautiful songs in the band’s repertoire. It’s an absolutely universal song in terms of the audience, because it’s hard for me to imagine a person who wouldn’t like it. The studio version closes the album Burn Out!, and the concert version closes the first section. But we still have eleven tracks ahead of us.
The first of them is the Zombiedog Playground instrumental from the single about Optical Illusions. She gives way to the deceptively calm Fool Fool Fool, which takes over much earlier than the zombie opus.
With lightning speed, it turns into a slightly garage rock’n’roll You‘re Gone, I’m Left, which features a charming dynamic drawdown that is used to represent the band members. It’s done with taste and sounds as appropriate as possible.
Next, the Stressor is performed by Dance Like A Monkey. It’s a very danceable thing, and most likely a recognized hit by the band, but somehow I don’t like it very much.
In Your Sky can’t be a favorite either. Somehow, it’s not clear that the batch of volumes turns into a punk drawing. Not bad, but somehow not at the level of the rest of the creativity.
Trip On Spaceship is much more interesting, although I find it difficult to recognize the harmonic experiments of this song as successful. But for the interesting dynamic nuances, you can forget about it.
But with Woodpecker Rock, everything is very entertaining. If you listen inattentively through poor-quality acoustics, you might think that this is a guest vocalist mysteriously imitating Wanda Jackson. But no, the vocalist has not changed. With a little magic, Andrey turns into a kind of cyber-woodpecker. A very good experiment.
Burning Down captures the soul with that frisky anxiety that I love so much in saika. As in the song about two hundred bones, there is a wonderful long-drawn chorus, with very emotional accents. And the rhythmic transition into a solo is amazing. Well, in the pause before the final chorus, the screams of the audience are incomparable. I don’t remember so much dashing Russianness since listening to Jancee Pornick Casino.
Scream is a frankly finishing song, designed to play with the listener in the spirit of Trashmen. It’s a great point to pseudo-end the concert.
As a bonus, they also played a song about the cemetery cat, The Cat, with meowing and other fun, and Bop-A-Lena, a traditional rockabilly at superluminal speed.
This was the live album of the band Stressor. High-quality, fun and very cool. If anyone does not believe in cycobilly in Russia now, this record can be presented as an official refutation.
If you want even more Stress, but Tula is far away, then there is another way. This is a video recording of the broadcast from the Northern Tunnel of the Zaryadye Park Complex, which took place on January 6, 2021. I have never seen a project of this quality in our culture, especially in our country. The playlist here is similar, but at the end of the performance, the guys play their Russian-language classics. I highly recommend you to get acquainted.
The music of Tula masters, with its quality, pressure and energy, gives great hope for the best. With their activities, Stressor shows that you can do very cool things, that the time and place are quite suitable for being alive. Like rock and roll. He’s definitely alive.
