Steel on Stone at Wayside Music

One of the profound surprises in the avant-progressive rock world (or at least my world) was the release of the latest album by this Moscow band whose name is actually in Cyrillic and most closely comes out as "Vezhliviy Otkaz". Like Geese and Swans, on this 1997 release, which was apparently their sixth, the group is a six piece this time featuring vocals/acoustic guitars, grand piano, trumpet, sax, bass/double bass and drums. All of their music is vocally based, and this is obviously them, but if it's definitely different than Geese and Swans. This beautiful double-pack digipackage also includes nearly 2 hours of professionally shot footage from 1996-1998, as well as a lot of information, photos and notes (in English!). They aren't 'typical' avant-progressive, since the songs are all short and are all so 'song-based', but they are perhaps even more original because of it. Conditionally highly recommended.

"Their best album, nary a filler track on this excellent collection of songs. Challenging, complex avant rock with plenty of odd rhythms, dissonant guitar riffs, angular piano and throbbing trumpet."-Levgan/RateyourMusic