Sonic Boom Six are sometimes labeled as punk, sometimes as ska, and sometimes as reggae/hip-hop with punk, dub and ska (that is the closest definition of their unusual sound). They also have some jpop influence, which can be clearly heard in the female vocal style. Not to make you feel confused, I’ll try to explain. This is a five piece band with one girl singing and four guys singing, playing bass, guitars, drums, saxophone, trombone and sampling. Oh and they have great British accent.

The biggest success of this band is that everything sounds very natural and has one major influence in every song – ska. Everything else varies from song to song. It can be hip-hop or punk or some dub piece, but there are always elements of ska. Sonic Boom Six manage to get everything together so well, that it is easy to believe that you are listening to the same band that manages to change style in every four minutes. Rapping takes most probably the second place in the influences, of course it is nothing like professional rappers, still it is okay and reminiscent of acts like Rage Against The Machine and Flobots.

The MC – Wheelie Cyberman was a former supervisor for Nintendo and a moderator of the Nintendo NSider Forums (one of his song Obey The Moderator is even based on his moderation experience). The music of Optimus Rhyme deserves huge attention. They play funk rock that is both reminiscent of the old funk, more modern style like Rage Against the Machine and music of video games. It is also similar to video game cover music outfit – The Advantage. Most of their lyrics are devoted to transformers and some other sci-fi stuff.

While the opinions in the reviews vary, the myspace of the band speaks for itself. Their first single Don’t Trust Me has over 72 million plays on myspace with a total number of 177 million plays for the band. Their debut album Want released in summer 2008 gave them huge fame and good place in the billboard chart, making Don’t Trust Me a song of the summer 2008. It is filled with party crashers like Richman and Chokechain. The duo that started as a weekend project is no touring the U.S. as a part of the Vans Warped Tour, gathering new fans at every show. The band also uses all the possible online services for promotion from the already traditional myspace and youtube to twitter, just to present their music (released on their own label) to the people.

The music of RATM was truly revolutionary, hip-hop and fink styled drums and bass lines, incredible guitar influenced by classic rock but with interesting distorted sounds and experiments, and of course the rapping of Zack on top of it. But it was not only great music that made this band famous, it was also a great political message and activism that was inherited from hardcore music. Unfortunately RATM disbanded in 2001.

Zack went on hiatus and released only a few tracks in the last seven years, bet in 2007 RATM reformed and is now crashing the stages again. Nothing known about their new album, but Zack recently released an EP together with the drummer of The Mars Volta under the name One Day As A Lion. Strictly drums, keyboards and political rapping. It was worth to wait seven years for it.

Flobots take a lot of influences from various styles, for me it sounds like Rage Against The Machine with no distortion. Funky drums and bass, more jazzy guitar with minor distorted parts are the base of this music. Next thing are the vocals, not exactly very awesome rapping also reminds of Zack De La Rocha and (omg) Mike Shinoda but the skill is there and the vocals sound nice on top of the music. Last ingredient – classically styled violin and trumpet, it gives a melodic and folk twist to the music making it much more interesting that other alternative hip-hop bands and giving it an indie rock feeling. Also this band has a strong political message and it is great because for a long time it was popular to sing about nothing.

They gained some attention after their song Uaaa…a! appeared in 2008 Russian movie hit Rozidgysh (Prank) and now Cheese People are smashing clubs all over the country. Their debut work Psycho Squirrel is varying from electronic pieces similar to The Prodigy to post-punk songs like Catch U. It’s a structural madness that needs a few spins before you get into it. A self-titled rerelease was also released in 2008, so basically if you are looking for some fresh and good Russian bands don’t miss this crazy team.