Frankly speaking I wasn't too fast to plug into this marvelous band from Belarus just because I didn't look through the booklet and lyrics rendered into Russian. The album presents itself a play in the spirit of Goethe's "Faust" of Bulgakov's "Master and Magarita". The narration is taken on behalf of a Victor Melnik, 36 years old foundry worker (right, where they hammer iron!). His two last months are represented when the main character meets two demons: Seraph and Xaphan. Victor believes them to be his imagination brood which losses from his reasons and brings him sufferings. He realizes himself getting mad and finally beholds the Devil in his reverie saying: No Corpse - No Funeral. The phase forces Victor to commit a suicide, an unsophisticated one. His working place becomes his funeral pyre - 1400 degrees accepted his body to leave no ashes. No corpse - no funeral. Let's view the music now. Without clear idea of the lyrics one can hardly comprehend such a mixture of progressive, doom, gothic, black, thrash , electronic and techno patterns. At first I didn't like the vocal manner of Yaroslav Burakov, whose English seemed far from fluent in spite of complicated lyrics. But later on I appreciated his painful responsibilities to sing for Victor and both demons, he also had to be an actor in fact. The vocals varies from black metal screams to high squeak. We also meet another character - a righteous man, whose vocal parts were performed by INFESTUM singer (another Belarus band). Such albums are really unique and I'm just glad that CIS band released this album-play.
   Damn good!