Lydia Salnikova sings "It's been a long time comin'" on the brand new second disc from Bering Strait.

Truer words may never have been sung given the Russian band's history in stepping up to the plate in the first place. While the band went through six record labels, one apartment fire, a highly supportive manager who almost lost everything for supporting his beloved band and a lot of sitting around and waiting before even releasing their debut, for their second album, "Pages," Bering Strait "only" had to wait 2 1/2 years for its release.

And during that time, group members say the band, which underwent a personnel change, also found their sound.

The self-titled debut did pretty well - selling 150,000 copies - considering the band received practically zero radio airplay. They even captured a Grammy nomination, had a commercially released documentary about them as well as a segment on 60 Minutes.

While publicized initially as a bluegrass band, the sound was far more country pop.

On "Pages," Bering Strait opts for a countrified, rootsier Fleetwood Mac vibe with lots of country instrumentation and bluegrass tossed into the mix.

"We couldn't be traditional if we tried," jokes Salnikova. "We're from Russia."

On the morning of the album's release, Salnikova says in a phone interview from her Nashville home, "Well it's definitely a little bit nerve wracking to put a new baby in the world. You never know how it's going to go because there are so many things that don't depend on you. You're already done. It's out, and face the world, and you hope it's going to find it's place, and people are going to like it. Just the fact to get an album out is a big blessing. You have to be happy at every stage. It's in the stores. You can tell people go to the stores, and pick it up. That's a lot more that you could say a few months ago."

Sasha Ostrovsky, Dobro and pedal steel pedal player, says for him, the album "is still very anticipated. It's been 2 1/2 years since our first record, and we have experimented a lot in between in trying to come up with our sound because we're moving ahead from the first record. We're not the same as we used to be. I think every artist grows to somewhere else after one record is done."

Several differences are apparent. Group members Natasha Borzilova on lead vocals, Alexander Arzamastsev on drums, Sergie "Spooky" Olkhovsky on bass, Salnikova on keyboards and vocals and Ostrovsky wrote 5 of the 11 songs, instead of the 1 they wrote on their own on the debut.

Borzilova and Salnikova share lead vocals this time around. Last time, Borzilova, who has a strong voice, sang most leads.

Sonically, acoustic guitar dominates instead of the electric of the debut. That is partially explained by opting to go with a different producer, Carl Jackson, who won a Grammy a few years ago for a Louvin Brothers tribute disc, and the departure from the band of guitarist Ilya Tolchinsky, who helped on guitar on "Pages," but played a subdued role.

Tolchinsky, who wrote two songs on the debut with non-band members, left because he wanted to produce music. The timing was not good because of concerns within the band about how the label would perceive the departure of a key member, so he held off until earlier this year.

Salnikova is not worried about the impact. While acknowledging Tolchinsky's contributions, she says, "I think the band is as tight as ever and committed, and I think we sound good. I think we're in a good place."

Ostrovsky, 24, says the writing represents "definitely a big change and a big step forward. It means we grew up to be better songwriters."

"When we picked the songs for the second record, the way we did it was just sitting in the room and just listening to a lot of songs, and I mean a lot - like hundreds of them."

"We were picking the songs not knowing who the songwriter was, the publishing company, not even knowing if one of us was the songwriter."

"At some point, we were trying to write all together. Probably we wrote 20 songs within the last year and a half. It was a great experience. We just kind of got closer together as musicians. We've been together for 16, 17 years as a band, but we haven't really written much together, maybe just a few songs that some of us were in the some room writing, but not all of us."

The experience "actually taught a lot of things - how to work together as a band on songwriting."

Salnikova says splitting the vocals "makes it more of a band sound. To me, it's very melodic. It's more us, I would say. The label gave us a little bit of a longer leash on this."

While the process may have had its advantages, it didn't actually result in many songs making the final cut. Only one - the instrumental "What's for Dinner?" - ended up on "Pages."

Ostrovsky says getting through the studio process wasn't easy the second time around. "We pretty much were struggling through a recording process, trying to figure it out. It's hard to come up with something original and be at the same time pretty good. Carl just helped us find that."

But somehow it sounds a lot easier than the first time when Bering Strait bounced between Sony, Arista Nashville, RCA, Gaylord, MCA and finally Universal South, which released both albums. In some cases, the band was a victim of the business climate with Arista Nash-ville folding into RCA. Personnel changes at record labels also resulted in different label execs having different musical interests.

"We were recording for five years bouncing from one label to another," says Ostrovsky. "Every new label wanted new songs on there. That kind of left a mark. We were a little bit ahead of the (first) record already by the time we released it (in 2003)...When we started recording the first album, it was 1997, and some of these tracks ended up on the record. The last cut that we made for the first record was made somewhere in 2002. In 1997, we didn't know better. We just came from Russia. It was a learning experience, cutting the first record."

Salnikova says, "We've grown during the recording of the album. By the time it was released, it was almost immediately dated."

"With the second record, most of us were working as session musicians, already working for other musicians as well as playing for the band as well as playing show after show after show," Ostrovsky says. "Technically, we were better musicians."

In describing the sound on "Pages," he says, "It's not like a lollipop, candy record. I think it's pretty record, and it's a different shade of our music."

The prettiness is evident from Salnikova's soaring ethereal delivery of the lead-off "Safe In My Lover's Arms."

The acoustic sound "came more from Carl," says Ostrovsky. "It wasn't a suggestion or anything like that. It just ended up being there. It wasn't talked about. That's what we ended up with creative forces in the studio."

The relationship with Jackson goes back a long way. Jackson recorded Bering Strait when they did their first demo in Nashville about 10 years ago. "It was not like he was a stranger to us," says Ostrovsky regarding picking Jackson to produce "Pages." Brent Maher produced the self-titled debut.

Universal South "had Carl in mind, and they thought it would be a great combination, and we tried working with him, and it ended up being great," says Ostrovsky.

"We definitely wanted to do maybe something new," he says, adding, "We just wanted to get in the right direction for the record, and we definitely (did) more with that."

Another unique aspect of Bering Strait's music is that each album contains one Russian song. On "Pages," it's Borzilova singing "Oy, Moroz-Moroz" ("Oh Frost," a popular Russian folk song about a man trying to get home on his horse to his jealous wife).

"We are Russian," says Salnikova. "It's nice to have some kind of flavor especially if it's true to life. You don't want to completely forget your roots."

While the Russian aspect adds uniqueness, besides the Russian songs, there is not any overtly Russian feel. They sing in unaccented English.

Not that many musicians get a chance to stretch out with instrumentals - Marty Stuart and Brad Paisley come to mind. But Bering Strait includes two, including Jerry Douglas' "From Ankara to Izmir," on which the Dobro master plays and produces.

"After playing the song for probably ever - since I started playing with the band - it's been more than 10 years, we've been doing it live all the time," says Ostrovsky. "It was like a dream to put it down. They (Universal South and management) thought it expressed our musicianship. I thought sure. When it finally came down to doing that, it is on the record, and we our proud of it."

Dobro with its steely sound isn't the type of musical instrument one would hear in Russia. Well, in fact, neither is pretty much anything Bering Strait does."

The musicians were all classically trained in their hometown of Obninsk, Russia, about 70 miles south of Moscow, a city of about 108,000 people.

A music teacher, Alexi Gvozdev brought the individuals together.

"I always wanted to play with a band," says Ostrovsky. "You had to actually be good to qualify from being his student to being in a band. I tried banjo - that was my first love. It didn't go further. I didn't have talents for banjo."

"He said, 'why don't you try Dobro?' We don't have it in the band, and we already have banjo.'...I just loved when I started playing it, and I loved it ever since."

"I kind of heard that there was a strange instrument that you play upside down. (Dobro actually is played while held horizontal to the ground and looks like a guitar). He showed me a few videotapes of people playing. 'Yeah that sounds really cool,'" Ostrovsky says he remembers thinking.

Bering Strait started making trips to the U.S. by 1994, playing at the International Bluegrass Music Associa-tion (IBMA) event.

It was there that they first met Douglas. Bering Strait was at the venue where Douglas and his group rehearsed for an awards ceremony. "We started to play their song," says Ostrovsky. He came to me and standing and looking at me playing his song," Ostrovsky recalls, laughing, saying Douglas told him, "'You sound just like me'."

"He gave me his Dobro to play at the award show," Ostrovsky says. "I could not believe that. We've been friends ever since."

Around this time, the band split with Gvozdev. It was not a friendly split. "You could say that," Ostrovsky says.

"We didn't have any instruments at all," says Ostrovsky. "We were trying to get guitars and all of that. We called Jerry Douglas to see if he could help us get something. He just gave me one of his guitars. That was amazing. I could not believe it."

Bering Strait also benefited from performing in a restaurant in Russia that an American art dealer, Ray Johnson, happened to venture in one night. He wasn't looking to hear music, but once he did, he told a friend upon his return to the U.S. Johnson also bankrolled visits by the musicians to the U.S.

The band came to the U.S. for the long haul in about 1997. After all, if a band is going to play country music, there is not a big market for that in Russia.

Eventually, the band settled in Nashville. "It was a struggle, " Ostrovsky says. "We had a very bad name at the time, which is not worth mentioning. We needed something new and fresh."

With input from a friend, they settled on Bering Strait, which reminded them of the gulf they were trying to bridge between the U.S. and Russia (The Bering Strait divides the two countries). along with a nod to Dire Straits, one of the group's favorite bands.

"We're trying to go cross over between our nations," says Ostrovsky. "Being one world, not being two different parts of the world, but the music is what connects."

They secured a development deal with Sony, but that did not lead to a full-fledged contract. They signed with Arista in 1999, but the label eventually folded in a consolidation with the contract going to parent company RCA.

One problem that afflicted Bering Strait was that because of their visas, they were unable to do any work except to play as musicians.

But their record labels did not want them to play live until they had a CD to sell.

With no money coming in and not supporting themselves, the band found themselves sacking out at the Nashville home of manager Mike Kinnamon with little to do.

Kinnamon wondered how he was going to survive as well as he poured his own money into the venture, coming close to losing his home and farm.

Kinnamon, 56 in mid-July, had previously managed rock bands, but was then a contractor. A friend who used to work with Bering Strait called him and "told me they were kind of in trouble."

"Eight years ago, they were a whole lot cuter than they were today. When you walk into the studio, and you hear these kids, they're smoking and they can barely speak English, and they come up and hug on you, you think, how can I not do this?"

Eventually, the band got its chance to play out, doing its first U.S. show ever opening in the summer of 2001 for Trisha Yearwood at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Va., a moment captured in the documentary about Bering Strait, "The Ballad of Bering Strait," which successfully captures the unique ups and downs of the band, with downs including almost throwing in the towel.

Shortly thereafter, Universal South released the single "Jagged Edge of a Broken Heart," but more heartache resulted because two weeks into it, despite having shot a video, which can be expensive, the label pulled back on promoting the single.

The wait continued, but the album eventually did come out in January 2003, and right beforehand, Bering Strait received a Grammy nomination for best country single for "Bearing Straight."

The album did well sales-wise considering no radio play. "We were touring for all this time on the road, 2 1/2 years," says Ostrovsky.

A by-product of the group getting out more was that they eventually left the friendly confines of Kinnamon's house, although an apartment fire severely damaged the dwelling of several band members.

Ostrovsky was the last of Bering Strait to leave Kinnamon's house, making the address change in mid-June.

With a new album, don't think Bering Strait now has it made. Kinnamon says he has three foreclosure letters on his table right now.

"You watch the movie and think 'oh my gosh, you think you're in a better place'," he says via cellphone while en route to Illinois. "It's much much rougher now because it costs more money now to stay out on the bus than it did then."

"We never had one day of airplay of radio on the first one, but we sold 150,000 units. Now, we have a little bit of airplay already, but if the single (a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "You Make Lovin' Fun") takes off, it'll change our lives. It may take 8 to 14 months, but it will change our lives."

"If I hadn't hung in there with them, they would have had to go back to Russia," says Kinnamon. "They're just too good."

Ostrovsky hopes the Russian novelty aspect is history. "Fans accept us for who we are as musicians. It's pretty much (by) people who don't know anything about us and just heard about us. We're just a novelty, and they don't know what kind of music we do. I see things written about us who never heard our record - a bluegrass band from Russia."

"That's why we're hoping with this record we're going to show people who we actually are and with a commercial single will put this story to an end - like the bluegrass story - and finally people will know us for who we are."

"We are a country band. We're on a country label, and if I had to put a genre mark next to us that would be country, but in the big picture, it's just music. It has some country roots in it, but it can be as rock and pop as it can go and with a bluegrass flavor."

Salnikova is nervously hopeful. "I'm trying to celebrate this stage of it and whatever happens happens. We're going to do our shows promoting it. I'm just thrilled to have it out. Just think it's been a long road since the record. I think we've grown a lot and changed a lot. I'm just really proud of this record. Truly. I have an emotional attachment to it. I listen to it frequently. You'd think after listening to it a thousand times, you wouldn't want to. That's a good sign to me."