Based in the former Soviet satellite country of Belarus, the DIY band Flame of Life‘s new album, Red Sunset, features a collection of interesting and super-charged tracks.
The heavy, fiery title track, “Red Sunset,” says the band, is the perfect example of this unlisted genre. “It was supposed to be the calling card of the album, and so it turned out.” The track accumulated over 13K streams on Soundcloud – not bad for music that you wouldn’t think many would dig.
LOF was founded in 2015 in the city of Homel, Belarus, by eccentric a trio of musicians without real names, like guitarist ‘The Bottle’ (formerly of punk-rock band Wortex Joke Equal), vocalist ‘Fazer‘ (formerly of experimental rock band Kometa).
Not long after, bassist ‘Dead Flower,’ who lived in a local cemetery before moving into the band’s studio, joined up, followed by D.J. Arrxonix who came on board to manage programming.
FOL’s first two releases were “unusual alternative releases,” Fazer says, “with some experimentation, but it was not enough.”
The four band members wanted to evolve and add a drummer, but not just any drummer – a drummer known as ‘The Cowboy’. Belarusians seem to like English nicknames. (That’s five so far.)
‘The Cowboy’ joined the band in early 2019. He is also an anarchist and punk rock fan, Fazer says. The band made a conscious decision to move forward with a new sound similar to industrial and nu-metal “but quite different too.” In fact, they call it ‘lazer.’
In describing the band members’ group dynamics, Fazer says: “We’re not friends. We never were. Everybody in the band has come from his own style. It helped us create special things that we couldn’t even imagine.”
LOF says that their debut self-titled album was “the face of the ‘lazer’ movement [in Belarus], but the genre has remained underground.” So underground, in fact, that we cannot find any references to it as a genre.
But, at the same time, we’d have to agree: the band’s sound is so underground, so strange and unusual that finding fans – at least in the U.S. – is going to be hard.
The band’s recent release is not for everyone – some would call it unlistenable. Frazer’s strange vocal delivery – almost like he’s playing with a baby (like songs “Eternal Bull” and “Five Bullets”) or tripping on too many drugs. As the band’s fans commented in mass on Soundcloud, the vocals desperately need some help.
When “Eternal Bull” gets warmed up, a sense of foreboding sets in; in fact, even the band still feels the emotional impact and power of sound.
“It was something strange and even scary,” Fazer confirms. “We are still afraid to listen to this sometimes. We put all our madness” into “Eternal Bull.”
The song “Fortress” is another energy-driven fast-moving chugger with a blazing guitar. But with a total of 25 tracks, one has to be really committed to make it all of the way through the album.