SLOT is an interesting musical style. I always saw them as a Russian interpretation of Linkin Park, but with better looking singers, especially the female lead, the overly interesting Daria Stavrovich who refers to herself as "Nookie." Yes. That Nookie. As in the title of the infamous Limp Biskit song from about 12 years ago. Others seem to see it the same way. Korn frontman Jonathan Davis described SLOT as a combination of Linkin Park and Evanescence. I guess his Russian is better than mine or he’s seeing a male singer in Evanescence that I’m missing. But, there is a similarity in the style of SLOT with other alternative bands in this country, and that is not by mistake. SLOT does fashion their performance after American bands, even if the lyrics have been, up until now, purely Russian. And that’s not something you can say for many Russian bands, nearly all of whom sing almost entirely in Russian. That’s not the case with other bands from former Soviet republics. Ukrainian bands sometimes perform with English lyrics, others from the former Soviet Republics do as well. . . but usually only when they find themselves working in another country: France or Finland for instance. But the Russians in Russia, well, with the exception of Blackthorn, I’m not familiar with many who sing in anything but Russian.

The production here is what we call a "maxi-single". It is only three songs, My Angel, Mirrors, and Dead Stars. Each of these was previously done in Russian and the new versions are NOT direct translations of the previous works. I have had considerable discussions with their American producer / lyricist Travis Leake about this process, and it is a significant undertaking. We’ll spend more time on that issue shortly. But this is only the first step for the band; there are far greater things in the works. SonicCathedral is planning to put some emphasis on bringing the music of SLOT to the Western Hemisphere, so expect to find much more about the band here.

SLOT is a quintet. The five include the previously mentioned Daria "Nookie" Stavrovich (Vocals), Igor "Cache" Lobanov (Vocals/Programming), Sergey "I.D." Bogolybsky (Guitars/Programming), Kirill "Dude" Kachanov – drums and Nikita "Nixon" Simonov – bass. Nookie is not the first vocalist with the band, but she is the first "regular" vocalist, and has been with the band since their second album. The band suggests influence from both American and European sounds, having an interest in groups like Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Guano Apes but also following European acts like Within Temptation and other northern European sounds. And their music demonstrates these influences. There is the hard progressive sound with the wild stage presence we often associate with Linkin Park, but there is also the capability of providing lovely melodies in the vein of a Within Temptation. Of course for most of us there has been--up till now--the foreign flavor of the Russian lyrics. Now however they are moving in the direction of a more American sound. Several of these can be seen on YouTube and will, of course, be available on this release as well as others planned for the near future.

The sound is what we now call "nu-metal". I guess that covers much of the alternative sound, at least the somewhat harder sound. For SLOT, that includes some driving guitars, punishing drums and the tradeoff vocals of Nookie, which alternate between hard screaming and soft, dark melodies, and the almost rap like delivery of male vocalist Cache. Now, don’t get too worried, by rap here, I mean more like a hip hop type delivery, we aren’t doing Snoop Dog or Jay-Z here. Nor is there a death metal sound in the tradition of many of the Northern European Gothic bands. This is music that is very familiar to American listening audiences, especially those with an interest in the alternative music direction. In fact, the name SLOT is English, it is exactly what it means in English, even if they use a somewhat "Russianized" graphic of the word in their titles. That fact alone says something about the earliest goals of the band to become recognized in Western society. That goal, however, took some time. The success of the band in Russia and throughout the former Soviet Union, and the time requirements to move to English lyrics, put that goal on hold for a number of years. It is only now becoming a realizable goal, one that will yet require much in preparation and hard work.

As I mentioned previously, there is a significant effort required to move Russian lyrics to mainstream American English. Russians use different terminology, different idioms, different thought patterns and these are found in the Russian lyrics for each of the three songs presented in the current production. Each song required a complete rewrite of the lyrics; these are interpretations not translations. For instance, the opening lines of Mirrors are: