MASTER - Master (Melodiya, 1989)

While their releases roughly coincided, this is definately not the Paul Speck Master, This Master were sharing members with one of Russia's first heavy metal bands - ARIA, Moscow's Master was formed in the mid-80's to pursue a more "thrash" sound then the Maiden/Priest influenced ARIA. Recording this debut S/T album 1988 and releasing it on state-run Melodiya in 1989, the album was hailed as the first Russian "Thrash" LP however, I think most of the songs on the S/T are just plain old traditional, Priest-influenced heavy metal, save for the title track which is indeed really fast thrash, and an omen on what their second LP - "With Lee on a Neck" would sound like.

Note: Compared to the metal-arhives.com data on the release dates of both of these albums I found a descrepancy. The dates on there are listed a year prior to the one's I've listed. The years I posted come straight from the center label where each year is clearly labeled as "recorded" and "released", ex. in the case of this album the years being 88 and 89.

Master