“B-2” recorded rock with a clear conscience
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The group released their eleventh album
The songs for the eleventh album “Bi-2” have been in preparation for four years, and the period from 2019 to 2022 can probably be called a very suitable time for the formation of musical messages. “Hallelujah” was created in a truly hurricane environment for everyone, however, in the epicenter of all this horror, the musicians found, at least for themselves, some support.
None of the already released Bi-2 albums had such a long prehistory as Hallelujah. They began to unleash the intrigue of the future release back in 2020 with the release of the first single “Inferno”. The song was in the spirit of alternative rock of the nineties, and the group was immediately bombarded with questions in the spirit of “will the rest be the same?” But Shura and Leva made mysterious faces and talked about their intention to surprise everyone.
“Depression” was written before the pandemic, but came out at the height of the lockdown and became a real meditation in terms of self-isolation. And it did not contain a hint of guitar rubilovo. The gothic gospel “God of the Damned” in combination with the video, which culminated in an almost Tarantino masacra in the interiors of a Lutheran church, surprised even more, as did the musicians’ assurance that new singles were ahead.
In 2021, “We Don’t Need a Hero” was released, a song that unexpectedly fell into unison with the street mood of that time. In the video, Shura and Lyova turned into the leaders of the junta, which mercilessly kills people’s idols of different times, and such images gave Bi-2’s musical statements a topicality that is not very characteristic of the group.
“It’s not that we decided to start chasing relevance, but just in a couple of years the world has changed so that you can no longer be outside this agenda,” Shura said in an interview with ZD in the spring of 2021. “Humanity is now practically on the brink of a third world war. And again this Soviet rhetoric sounds, which, among other things, also imposes some imprint on new songs.
An even more frightening prophecy was the song “I Don’t Trust Anyone”, released in early February 2022. “The agent of winter set fire to the foliage, the whole world is on fire, and I live without alternate airfields…” – these lines are unlikely to have specific references, the musicians themselves, as a rule, insist that in their compositions they explore the internal conflicts of a person. Nevertheless, after a few weeks, the group, like all of us, found itself in reality, which seemed to come out of some of the songs of B-2.
The group released the next single “Lullaby” already in a situation where their activities in Russia were extremely complicated. The song itself is dedicated to Alena Meshkova, who headed the charitable foundation of Konstantin Khabensky. Alena died last year and, already seriously ill, asked Leva and Shura to write a lullaby for her. The pain of loss and the general situation inspired the authors of “Bi-2” to a song full of longing and darkness. She opens the album, expressing the mood not only of the authors, but also of millions of people.
It would not be entirely correct to consider the album “Hallelujah” solely as a reflection on the events of recent years. On ten previous releases, Bi-2 tried a variety of sounds: from booming Russian rock to mainstream pro-Western indie with a distraction to monumental hits. On the eleventh album, the band collects all the bricks of their musical structure and puts them together again into something very eclectic. Where there are guitars and synth noises, gospel and post-punk, hints of industrial and interest in purebred pop music. A sort of musical constructor “Lego” in hard-working hands and with fantasy overflowing.
The overall gloomy and quite understandable mood of the disc can hardly be called hopeless. Over a fairly long career, Shura, Lyova and their current associates had many reasons to formulate a not very new, but important idea in the title track “Hallelujah”: “Do what you have to do, boldly, because you believe.” And in the song “Personal Space” – probably the most optimistic number of the album – there is even hope for the future: “We will live with you, we will not break.”
Bi-2, like many of their colleagues, are now in a situation where far-reaching plans are difficult to take seriously. However, at the moment, the group has done what thousands of fans expected from it – they released songs written, albeit without faith in ideals, but with a clear conscience.
Newspaper headline:
Rock nihilism with a clear conscience
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