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Trollheart · 09-30-2015, 07:24 PM

This year I'm doing something a little different. Last time I picked random countries to explore from a Metal point of view. After thinking about it for a while, this year I want to choose countries that are united by the one common denominator. Some may say this is in poor taste but I assure you it's not: nevertheless, the theme linking these four countries is war and conflict. Each of them has been, or is currently being, torn apart by a vicious war that makes it hard to believe there is anywhere for music, never mind Metal, to survive, and yet, across these four similar yet very different lands, the united and unsilenceable voice of Heavy Metal rings out, defying the tyrants, the suicide bombers, the missiles and rockets, and proving that, friend or enemy, religion or politics or indeed even language itself is no barrier to those who just want to rock out and have a fuckin' good time!

The countries this year, then, are Iran, Syria, Bosnia and Hertzogovenia, and Israel/Palestine. I choose the last two as one entity for obvious reasons: they occupy the same country, one struggling for a homeland while the other is determined to keep them forever subservient and second-class, and surely there could be no more defined dividing line than that? Despite, or perhaps even because of that, bands from each country survive and flourish, and two from opposite sides have even joined forces, of which more later. Then of course there's Iran, whose rulers want nothing more than to wipe Israel off the map, and who are a constant threat to world security, to say nothing of a tight and hardline theocracy. When your very music is all but outlawed in your home country, how do you survive? And yet, Metal is waving its flag and punching its fist in Iran just as it is everywhere.

We're all aware of the awful conflict that tore Yugoslavia apart in the eighties and resulted in no less than seven new countries being born, one of which has continued to suffer and remained, for a long time, the “poster child” for ethnic cleansing and genocide. While many of these other newborn countries --- Slovenia, Montenegro, Croatia --- have managed to reinvent themselves and become at least bit-players on the world stage (or at least the European one), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia for short) still shudders to the memories of its past, and struggles to lay to rest the ghost of the atrocities suffered by its people, and to emerge out of the darkness of the war that tore it apart in the 1980s.

And what can you say about Syria? One of the most powerful members of the Arab League, it has stubbornly resisted the wave of change and reform that swept across the Middle East in the wake of what became known as “The Arab Spring”, and under its dictatorial ruler, Assad, has practiced more horrors and war crimes on its citizens than pretty much any country I can think of. Despite the UK Prime Minister's contention, several years ago now, that “Assad will fall, he must fall”, he is still in power and the civil war in Syria rages on, intervention by the West prevented due to its powerful position among the Arab nations, and support of one of the remaining Superpowers.

But we are not here to debate politics, or lament the loss of life and the human cost of these wars, terrible though they may be. I'm not a poltical analyst; I just write about music, and it's that which we are exploring here this year, specifically of course the various Heavy Metal bands who have managed to ply their trade and survive against such a backdrop of despair, chaos and hopelessness. The pickings in general are fairly slim, so I will be taking a look at about four or maybe five bands from each territory, trying to get the best overall flavour as to what is available, so expect anything from Doom to Death and from Prog to Thrash Metal, as I try to sample what's on the menu.

I suppose it should come as no surprise, given their dour and bleak history, but the overwhelming majority of Metal bands in Bosnia seem to be into Black Metal. That's of course not good news for me, who is no fan of the blackstuff, but it does mean that I can hardly avoid it and will certainly end up dancing with Satan in Sarajevo before this week is through. Before that though, I thought I'd try something a little closer to my own preferences, something that hopefully will not send me screaming to the toilet in terror or banging on the gates of the church to be let in. Maybe.

It's hardly an original name, but one of the problems I came across last year, and which is resurfacing of course this year, is that so many of these bands are unsigned, or of they are, their material is next to impossible to locate. So when I find a band that a) has at least one album and b) I can find that album one way or another, they get the nod. Interestingly, I thought this band would be very hard to separate from the thousands or more instances of the word “apocalypse” on YouTube and Google --- after all, you put in the words “Apocalypse Bosnia” and you get a very upsetting video, let me assure you --- but luckily for me some kind soul has uploaded their entire sole album, track by track, to the Big Y, so I can review it. Who are the band? Glad you asked.

Igra --- Apocalypse --- 2003 (One Records)

Let's be brutally honest here --- okay, okay! Br00tally honest! Happy? --- I'm unlikely to be able to discover very much about any of these bands, with the exception maybe of the ones from Israel. I just don't see a wealth of information coming across on them on the web, and so the details about each are probably going to be quite sparse. What I can tell you is that Apocalypse (how dull: they didn't even replace the “c” with a “k”...) have been together since 1999, released their demo in 2001 with two tracks, both of which are a single word title, one of which has no vowels (DWV will love that one!) and then put out this, to date their only album, in 2003. They're listed as “active” but you would have to wonder after twelve years if they're likely to release a followup at this stage?

They're a five-piece, with two guitarists and a keyboard player, and are described on my Metal Bible website, Metal-Archives.com (look, it's just easier than typing Encyclopaedia Metallum all the time, all right? And it is the actual name of the site) as “Thrash Metal”, so may be the closest I get to Metal I can actually dig, not that that will stop me. Bosnia is also one of those countries that holds the letters z, v and j in higher estimation than most European ones, as well as adding a few fun accents, umlauts and whatever you're having yourself, just to make it more interesting, so there's going to be a lot of copy-and-pasting here. Just bear with me.

The album of course is all sung in their native language (though whether that's Bosnian, Slavic or what I don't know: it certainly ain't English though!) with titles full of the abovementioned “extras” and more k's, j's and z's than you can shake a stick at. If you had a stick. And wanted to shake it. It only has seven tracks, one of which is an instrumental, and all fall under the six-minute mark, most coming in around three or four. We kick off with “Između života i smrti “, and no, I have no idea what any of this means, but it's a good powerful opening on keys --- almost more progressive than Thrash I would say, at least this track, with a grinding, crunching guitar that runs for nearly a minute before the vocals come in. Dobroslav Slijepčević , who also plays one of the sets of two keyboards, is a decent singer, but nothing special I feel. Good on the keys too, though with Snježana Gnjatić partnering him on the keys it's hard to say who is the better player.

It's powerful and anthemic, but not as fast as I had expected, decent opening though. Good the way it slows down for a dramatic instrumental ending, then we're into “1389 (Heaven or Hell)”, which appears to be in English, as is the title, opening on another big synth solo with a Dickinson-like “Whoa-oh-oh-oh!” in the chorus. Good trundling percussion drives the tune along, courtesy of Stojan Lasica. Good melody in the song but it is very derivative of Maiden. “Svijet iluzije” has more than a touch of Dio in it, more Maiden and a sort of chanted vocal which works well. The guitar solo however does not; sounds like it's all out of tune. Ugh. A bit harder and grindier for “Vječna tajna “, more guitar-driven and a little faster, but it slows down about halfway and the Dio influence is back.

At least the guitarists seem to have it together this time, though the solo is a little Dragonforce for me. Hmm. There's one more English song to go, and it comes in the form of “Crucifixion”, often a favourite subject with Metal bands. It certainly swaggers along nicely with a long instrumental intro, probably the best track on the album, at least this far. The penultimate track then is the only instrumental, and goes by the title of “Sumrak vizantije”, a throaty, bassy synth opening proceedings and takign the piece nearly halfway through, with the sound of cellos or violins (presumably synthesised) joining in before the guitars come fading in and the tune takes off. From a slow, rather balladic piece it becomes a fast hard rocker but never loses its charm throughout. Another standout, and shows what these guys can do when they really try. We close then on the title track, and it's a fast, keyboard-driven rocker which really closes the album well.

TRACKLISTING

1. Između života i smrti
2. 1389 (Heaven or Hell)
3. Svijet iluzije
4. Vječna tajna
5. Crucifixion
6. Sumrak Vizantije
7. Igra

It's certainly not a bad album, but I can see why they're only known (if at all) in their native Bosnia. Given that they have only released, as I mentioned, one album in over fifteen years, the fact that they sound so like every other Metal band from Newcastle to New York is not likely to help their case. They've surely listened to too much Iron Maiden, Saxon and Dio, with other bands like Stratovarius and maybe Angra thrown into the mix, and have not so much based their sound upon those bands but basically copied it, right down to the sudden guitar endings and the choruses.

They're a good band, but to be able to stand out they need some identity of their own, and based on this, their only album, Apocalypse are doomed to remain in the shadows of other, greater bands while opportunity, fame and fortune pass them by.

09-30-2015, 07:24 PM	#2745 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,971	This year I'm doing something a little different. Last time I picked random countries to explore from a Metal point of view. After thinking about it for a while, this year I want to choose countries that are united by the one common denominator. Some may say this is in poor taste but I assure you it's not: nevertheless, the theme linking these four countries is war and conflict. Each of them has been, or is currently being, torn apart by a vicious war that makes it hard to believe there is anywhere for music, never mind Metal, to survive, and yet, across these four similar yet very different lands, the united and unsilenceable voice of Heavy Metal rings out, defying the tyrants, the suicide bombers, the missiles and rockets, and proving that, friend or enemy, religion or politics or indeed even language itself is no barrier to those who just want to rock out and have a fuckin' good time! The countries this year, then, are Iran, Syria, Bosnia and Hertzogovenia, and Israel/Palestine. I choose the last two as one entity for obvious reasons: they occupy the same country, one struggling for a homeland while the other is determined to keep them forever subservient and second-class, and surely there could be no more defined dividing line than that? Despite, or perhaps even because of that, bands from each country survive and flourish, and two from opposite sides have even joined forces, of which more later. Then of course there's Iran, whose rulers want nothing more than to wipe Israel off the map, and who are a constant threat to world security, to say nothing of a tight and hardline theocracy. When your very music is all but outlawed in your home country, how do you survive? And yet, Metal is waving its flag and punching its fist in Iran just as it is everywhere. We're all aware of the awful conflict that tore Yugoslavia apart in the eighties and resulted in no less than seven new countries being born, one of which has continued to suffer and remained, for a long time, the “poster child” for ethnic cleansing and genocide. While many of these other newborn countries --- Slovenia, Montenegro, Croatia --- have managed to reinvent themselves and become at least bit-players on the world stage (or at least the European one), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia for short) still shudders to the memories of its past, and struggles to lay to rest the ghost of the atrocities suffered by its people, and to emerge out of the darkness of the war that tore it apart in the 1980s. And what can you say about Syria? One of the most powerful members of the Arab League, it has stubbornly resisted the wave of change and reform that swept across the Middle East in the wake of what became known as “The Arab Spring”, and under its dictatorial ruler, Assad, has practiced more horrors and war crimes on its citizens than pretty much any country I can think of. Despite the UK Prime Minister's contention, several years ago now, that “Assad will fall, he must fall”, he is still in power and the civil war in Syria rages on, intervention by the West prevented due to its powerful position among the Arab nations, and support of one of the remaining Superpowers. But we are not here to debate politics, or lament the loss of life and the human cost of these wars, terrible though they may be. I'm not a poltical analyst; I just write about music, and it's that which we are exploring here this year, specifically of course the various Heavy Metal bands who have managed to ply their trade and survive against such a backdrop of despair, chaos and hopelessness. The pickings in general are fairly slim, so I will be taking a look at about four or maybe five bands from each territory, trying to get the best overall flavour as to what is available, so expect anything from Doom to Death and from Prog to Thrash Metal, as I try to sample what's on the menu. I suppose it should come as no surprise, given their dour and bleak history, but the overwhelming majority of Metal bands in Bosnia seem to be into Black Metal. That's of course not good news for me, who is no fan of the blackstuff, but it does mean that I can hardly avoid it and will certainly end up dancing with Satan in Sarajevo before this week is through. Before that though, I thought I'd try something a little closer to my own preferences, something that hopefully will not send me screaming to the toilet in terror or banging on the gates of the church to be let in. Maybe. It's hardly an original name, but one of the problems I came across last year, and which is resurfacing of course this year, is that so many of these bands are unsigned, or of they are, their material is next to impossible to locate. So when I find a band that a) has at least one album and b) I can find that album one way or another, they get the nod. Interestingly, I thought this band would be very hard to separate from the thousands or more instances of the word “apocalypse” on YouTube and Google --- after all, you put in the words “Apocalypse Bosnia” and you get a very upsetting video, let me assure you --- but luckily for me some kind soul has uploaded their entire sole album, track by track, to the Big Y, so I can review it. Who are the band? Glad you asked. Igra --- Apocalypse --- 2003 (One Records) Let's be brutally honest here --- okay, okay! Br00tally honest! Happy? --- I'm unlikely to be able to discover very much about any of these bands, with the exception maybe of the ones from Israel. I just don't see a wealth of information coming across on them on the web, and so the details about each are probably going to be quite sparse. What I can tell you is that Apocalypse (how dull: they didn't even replace the “c” with a “k”...) have been together since 1999, released their demo in 2001 with two tracks, both of which are a single word title, one of which has no vowels (DWV will love that one!) and then put out this, to date their only album, in 2003. They're listed as “active” but you would have to wonder after twelve years if they're likely to release a followup at this stage? They're a five-piece, with two guitarists and a keyboard player, and are described on my Metal Bible website, Metal-Archives.com (look, it's just easier than typing Encyclopaedia Metallum all the time, all right? And it is the actual name of the site) as “Thrash Metal”, so may be the closest I get to Metal I can actually dig, not that that will stop me. Bosnia is also one of those countries that holds the letters z, v and j in higher estimation than most European ones, as well as adding a few fun accents, umlauts and whatever you're having yourself, just to make it more interesting, so there's going to be a lot of copy-and-pasting here. Just bear with me. The album of course is all sung in their native language (though whether that's Bosnian, Slavic or what I don't know: it certainly ain't English though!) with titles full of the abovementioned “extras” and more k's, j's and z's than you can shake a stick at. If you had a stick. And wanted to shake it. It only has seven tracks, one of which is an instrumental, and all fall under the six-minute mark, most coming in around three or four. We kick off with “Između života i smrti “, and no, I have no idea what any of this means, but it's a good powerful opening on keys --- almost more progressive than Thrash I would say, at least this track, with a grinding, crunching guitar that runs for nearly a minute before the vocals come in. Dobroslav Slijepčević , who also plays one of the sets of two keyboards, is a decent singer, but nothing special I feel. Good on the keys too, though with Snježana Gnjatić partnering him on the keys it's hard to say who is the better player. It's powerful and anthemic, but not as fast as I had expected, decent opening though. Good the way it slows down for a dramatic instrumental ending, then we're into “1389 (Heaven or Hell)”, which appears to be in English, as is the title, opening on another big synth solo with a Dickinson-like “Whoa-oh-oh-oh!” in the chorus. Good trundling percussion drives the tune along, courtesy of Stojan Lasica. Good melody in the song but it is very derivative of Maiden. “Svijet iluzije” has more than a touch of Dio in it, more Maiden and a sort of chanted vocal which works well. The guitar solo however does not; sounds like it's all out of tune. Ugh. A bit harder and grindier for “Vječna tajna “, more guitar-driven and a little faster, but it slows down about halfway and the Dio influence is back. At least the guitarists seem to have it together this time, though the solo is a little Dragonforce for me. Hmm. There's one more English song to go, and it comes in the form of “Crucifixion”, often a favourite subject with Metal bands. It certainly swaggers along nicely with a long instrumental intro, probably the best track on the album, at least this far. The penultimate track then is the only instrumental, and goes by the title of “Sumrak vizantije”, a throaty, bassy synth opening proceedings and takign the piece nearly halfway through, with the sound of cellos or violins (presumably synthesised) joining in before the guitars come fading in and the tune takes off. From a slow, rather balladic piece it becomes a fast hard rocker but never loses its charm throughout. Another standout, and shows what these guys can do when they really try. We close then on the title track, and it's a fast, keyboard-driven rocker which really closes the album well. TRACKLISTING 1. Između života i smrti 2. 1389 (Heaven or Hell) 3. Svijet iluzije 4. Vječna tajna 5. Crucifixion 6. Sumrak Vizantije 7. Igra It's certainly not a bad album, but I can see why they're only known (if at all) in their native Bosnia. Given that they have only released, as I mentioned, one album in over fifteen years, the fact that they sound so like every other Metal band from Newcastle to New York is not likely to help their case. They've surely listened to too much Iron Maiden, Saxon and Dio, with other bands like Stratovarius and maybe Angra thrown into the mix, and have not so much based their sound upon those bands but basically copied it, right down to the sudden guitar endings and the choruses. They're a good band, but to be able to stand out they need some identity of their own, and based on this, their only album, Apocalypse are doomed to remain in the shadows of other, greater bands while opportunity, fame and fortune pass them by. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018