Grazhdanskaya Oborona (also known as GO and Grazhdanka) was Soviet and Russian punk band. It appeared in 1984 in Omsk, Siberia. The leader, lyricist and vocalist of the band was Yegor Letov. He died in 2008.
The music by “Grazhdanskaya oborona” is classified as punk-rock and post-punk in the early years, noise-rock with hardcore elements in 90ies, and psychedelic rock with shoegazing in the late years of the band. Also do not expect something like “Offspring”, “The Sonics”, “The Who”, “The Stooges”, etc. The most significant difference is the vocal. Letov’s singing manner is somewhat alike to the Kobain’s vocal, but even gruffer. He sang in a bass manner… deep emotional bass vocal. His singing was half screaming half singing. The music was relevant to the vocal. So were the lyrics as well. I haven’t heard anything alike. This band was unique and authentic. They were true punks. In an interview Yegor Letov told that sometimes before singing he drank boiling-hot water for the matter of vocal. The special thing of the songs by “Grazhdanskaya Oborona” is their lyrics. They are very special in all meanings. They are sincere, well written, poetic, original, and full of unique metaphors and images. The form of the verse is also very special. Most of the lyrics possess social thematic. They are quite moralizing though sometimes they contain non-normative lexicon. Also there are a lot of surreal elements in the text of the songs. While a lot of the songs of this band could be hardly called melodious, some of them have beautiful melody. Also most of them are powerful and rhythmic. It is quite interesting how well they mixed rhythmic with melody. Also the authentic style is in each of the song but the songs are not equal and differ a lot. Total number of the compositions (including covers, audio monologues, etc.) is 1153. The number of original songs by “Grazhdanskaya oborona” is something like 500 hundreds I suppose. I am going to try to translate some of the words of the lyrics by Letov. “The sky is empty colored. Fall of the leaves eats us Escapade from the blind summer and hob-nob chase Bell babble is boiling in the air, and there’s smoke over the forgotten forces What if everything we are searching for Is obtained when we unseal our sensual beloved precious selves Universal Great Love Universal Great Love Universal Great Love Is my bottomless savings box in the emptiness”
