Sepsis
Liturgia Bezumia

Sepsis (Сепсис) Liturgia Bezumia (Литургия Безумия) 1991 Russia

Due to a series of vetoes imposed by the regimes of the bloc, all Eastern European countries experienced more or less significant delays in freely expressing their musical ideas.
Especially in the old Russia, making music meant adhering to rather marked stylistic and textual impositions, and very few managed to release records without being heavily censored. Since the fall of the Soviet world, many bands have gone back to styles and musical ways that had long been out of use in the rest of Europe, but it often happened that the recovery was related to their own music, perhaps not released due to the aforementioned issues. Among the many bands that emerged shortly before or after the fall of the various walls, these Sepsis are among the most obscure and least known. It is known that they formed near St. Petersburg at the end of the '80s and in 1991, already disbanded, they released this “Liturgia Bezumia” on vinyl, a record that is found on the used market even at ridiculous prices. In 2001, the French Musea released it on CD for Europe, with the title simply translated to “A Liturgy Of Madness.” The record essentially consists of a single track of over 40 minutes divided into two suites whose title is Anglicized as “Mad Cucumber 1 and 2.”
The bass, guitar, and drums trio is evaluated today in an entirely instrumental recording, although the listening reveals some moments where male and female vocals appear, joining a base that is always quite powerful and changing. Despite being a highly personal and difficult-to-categorize record, some sources of inspiration can be traced in Rush, mid-'70s Yes, early '80s King Crimson, Mike Oldfield, and Hawkwind. Nothing truly derivative, but the work can inevitably be defined as a sum of psychedelic space rock, with kraut and hard rock traits, not disdaining some brief steps into jazz rock.
Many sudden shifts are generated by varied, complex, and extremely imaginative writing, and although keyboards are entirely absent, the parts of great melodic and almost symphonic openness are not missing.
There's no point in analyzing the track in detail and in its various movements, but it can be said that some parts appear noticeably less harsh, with the introduction of acoustic guitars and choral parts, especially occurring in the second part, which is more symphonic and keeps the desire for continuous twists intact, leaving the theme in a few minutes, often in seconds. We are not talking about a masterpiece, but about a very commendable record, which could represent the gateway to the Russian musical world, vast and intriguing no less than others, perhaps a bit behind the rest of Europe, but which can provide great satisfaction to the sufficiently curious listener willing to explore.

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