Release Date: June 13th 2025. Record Label: Riff Dealers. Formats: DD
Live - Tracklisting
1.Каждый день 11:02
2.Ты нужна мне 09:13
3.Ельни вий 11:38
4.Погреб 14:20
Members
Ilya Kovalsky – vocals/guitar,
Vladislav Strakovsky – guitar
Evgeny Klachkov – bass
Nikita Tatarintsev – drums
Review
Live is the debut album from Doom/Stoner Metallers Pogreb who arrive from Minsk, Belarus and who are given their chance to shine within the underground scene courtesy of great label Riff Dealers Records. As the title suggests, this is a LIVE ALBUM that is spread across four lengthy tracks with the album running around forty five minutes in length.
If you’ve grown up on a steady diet of riffs provided by the likes of SLEEP, Electric Wizard, Black Sabbath and BELZEBONG then here’s another superb band to check out. Throw in vast amounts of AMPLIFIER FEEDBACK, Seedy Proto-Doom Metal sounds and a blatant disregard for modern day recording techniques. As this album is raw, loud, mean and nasty as they come. The music is put through a ton of reverb and down-tuned distortion which rarely allows the Psychedelic soundscapes to grow organically. Pogreb feel like they're playing their instruments with a HAMMER and I wouldn’t be surprised if their instruments were completely unusable after this epic live performance.
I have to give credit to the band as they do play superb melodic surroundings along the way which reminds me of SLEEP and COUGH in places especially on the standout tracks of Каждый день, Ельни вий and Погреб. The vocals are quite sparse throughout the album and only appear when they need to appear but Ilya Kovalsky’s style and delivery is what you expect for a raw sounding album such as this. They’re delivered with absolute conviction but with a pure PUNK ROCK energy and PRIMAL essence which could be considered CAVEMAN based but Ilya fully delivers on all fronts.
Pogreb’s record label (Riff Dealers) previously released the stunning and similarly raw live album from Sludge/Stoner Metallers Doūsk where I stated within my review for them - I’m looking forward to hearing a proper “STUDIO” recording from Doūsk in the future but LIVE is one hell of a record that demands your full and undivided attention. The same goes for Pogreb where I would love to hear a proper studio recording of these tracks to hear what they sound like in a studio environment.
I perhaps prefer Pogreb’s “Live” album to Doūsk as it’s heavier and has more intense and evil sounding grooves that adds a brilliantly morbid style of AMPLIFIER DISTORTION to the mix.
Excellent and Highly Recommended.
Words by Steve Howe
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