Further problems raise their head; the lot of poor Trollheart eh? A lot of the bands on Metal Archives's list are shown as split-up, and really, unless the band was really well-known there's little point in my highlighting them if they are no longer around. Which restricts me then to “active” bands, of which there are not fistfuls to be honest. This one, however, is interesting. They apparently play Southern Metal. Southern Metal? In Bosnia? This I need to hear.
Just one problem: no album available. Or rather, there is, but I can't find it. Never fear though: they released a five-song EP only last year and again some enterprising metalhead has uploaded the whole thing in one go to the Y, so I can listen to that. And here it is.
One stone --- Misery Crown --- 2014 (Self-released)
Another good thing is that these guys sing in English, so I should be hopefully able to get a better idea what their music is about. No keyboards this time, just two guitars, bass drum and vocals. They hail from beautiful Sarajevo and have only been together since 2012, but unlike our friends Apocalypse, they have already had an album in 2013 and now as I say an EP last year, so they're not letting the grass grow under their feet. It's a fast, frenetic guitar assault but then, weirdly, vocalist Ensar Bistrivoda has a sort of dour, slow doom voice which then metamorphoses into something close to a death growl. Indeed. “In absence of...” starts the EP off well, with deep enough lyrics:
”Nothing is sacred, nothing falls from the skies, no other truth beneath lies.” Okay, hardly the most original lines in the world but still, better than “kill everyone” or whatever.
Much slower and crunchier is the title track, with snarling guitars leading the line and Bistrivoda giving it socks on the vocals. Kind of reminds me of Hetfield maybe. Maybe not. Not a big Metallica fan, but it's what comes to mind. Good fast guitar solo speeds things up before it drops back down to the original tempo and kind of repeats really. I do like the idea in the lyric:
”One stone took down the giant/ All alone I stand in defiance.” Says it all really. A slow rasping guitar quickly becomes a chugalong one as “Lesser man” boogies along really nicely, with an interesting political message in the song:
”We gave them power/ And we can take it back” though they do belabour the point a little, repeating the word “back” several times.
Unfortunately they run out of ideas before the song is over and just repeat the whole thing but pushing up the tempo, which really does not work. I thought it was over, and it was ending well (in fact, I really like(d) this song) and then they did this, which just made a total mess of it. Why? It's only an EP: it's not like they had to fill up space, and if they had to, why not maybe a guitar solo or something? It just seems so unnecessary and so untidy. A real pity. And then they do it again. It gets just beyond ridiculous. The next track is an Alice in Chains cover apparently --- don't know their music, but it's called “Dam that river”, and if you know AiC I guess you'll know the song. As for how well they cover it, I couldn't tell you of course, but it's a decent rock stomper from what I can gather.
That leaves us with one track before the EP comes to a close, and “Among the brave” unfortunately has our man trying to sing death metal, and he's really not up to it: his “death growls” just sound like he has wind or something. A poor ending to what is generally not too bad an EP, if a little overblown. Don't really see the Southern Metal influence though. Unless ... is Sarajevo in the south of Bosnia? No, it's about the middle. Don't get it then.
TRACKLISTING
1. In absence of...
2. One stone
3. Lesser man
4. Dam that river
5. Among the brave
I don't know: if I had had a chance to listen to the full album I might have got into this, but if they insist on overextending their songs with pointless repetition, maybe this EP was enough. I have to say though it's a good bit better than poor old Apocalypse, then again that's really not saying very much, is it?