KINO - "GRUPPA KROVI" (1988)

Every Kino album from 1986 to 1990 was a blockbuster in Russia, selling around a couple of millions copies each. "Gruppa krovi" made no exception, as its title-track is probably the most popular Russian rock song ever. "Zakroy za mnoy dver'", "Spokoynaya noch'" and "Mama my vse tyazhelo bol'ny" were also big hits, but every track here is a classic, basically. 

The album was recorded with hi-tech instruments such as the drum machine Yamaha RX-11 and the sampler Prophet 2000, both provided by Yuri Kasparian's American wife, Joanna Stingray. The sound is really advanced if compared to their earlier works: here you can hear a solid post-punk with loud rhythms, walls of guitars, sound effects, and a characteristic melodic sense, vaguely linked to Russian classical and traditional music (just think to Kasparian's guitar at the end of the title-track). Viktor Tsoi's voice is deeper than ever, painting every song with a gothic flavour.  
The first half of the record is more solid than the second, but my favourite is probably the closing track, "Legenda", a tragic ballad with a spare arrangement for guitar and electronic layerings. 

"Gruppa krovi" was the first album of Kino's classic line-up, with Igor Tikhomirov (from progressive rock band Dzhungli) replacing Aleksandr Titov on bass. 

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