Двери! Двери! / THE DOORS! THE DOORS!

The second album was released in 2005, and translates as 'Doors! Doors!' and features the same line-up as the debut, except this time they also brought in multiple guests on vocals plus a cellist. There is a very gentle introduction, played (I think) on a balalaika which leads into the second number which commences on a Jew's Harp. Pretty soon the guest singers make their presence felt, and it honestly feels like an opera is being performed, in Russian, with complex music behind the vocals. Luckily my brain had already decided to leave my skull and go for a nice quiet lay down somewhere, leaving me with just my ears trying to work out what was going on. That was never going to work, so instead I allowed myself to relax into the album and just enjoy it for what it was. I swear I heard some of "Pie Jesu" at some point, but given there was so much going on I could well have been mistaken, and probably am. The use of classically trained singers, albeit just for a few songs at the beginning, certainly gives this a very different feel to what had been on the debut.

There is also a very long song on the album, at more than eighteen minutes, which for a large part is acoustic, with the cello taking a lead role at times. It is mostly acoustic, and incredibly dramatic, using minor chords and clashing instruments to create quite a feeling of disquiet during certain sections. But the fifth number is metallic Cardiacs on steroids, which doesn't sound like anything else that has gone before. The brain decided it was safer not to get involved, leaving the ears to process the music and letting the mouth smile (trying not to dribble). This album is even more varied, complex and insane than the debut, and when death-style vocals start being used it really is time to give up.

Needless to say, I love this, and believe that Progshine are doing us all a favour by making the band's catalogue more readily available. I just need to coax my brain back so that I can spend time listening to the rest. Superb.