Although many people find them controversial and not what they were in their beginings, I found the phenomenon of BRKOVI fascinating. This band comes from Zagreb, the capitol of Croatia and they fill all the big halls and stadiums of the region meaning Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Slovenia. Everything they did was diy and without a label or some strong hand to back them up. This is their new studio album and I listened and reviewed it for this webzine.
The members of Brkovi are the veterans of Croatian underground punk and hardcore scene baking their experience in many bands prior to this one. Brkovi were formed, as the guys say, to mix their love for punkrock, some metal and folk music. The band is very tight and musically one of the tightest bands in the Croatian scene. Some may like their style with unique sense of humour in the lyrics, auto irony and the lyrics touch everything that is primitive and mindless in some people but are done with a nice line of sarcasm. Some don´t like them and claim that they became what they laughed about in their songs in the earlier days. They remind of the old Yugoslav band Nervozni poštar, but in my opinion Brkovi are better. I find their first two albums awesome. Then they had some great songs on their records and some were awful. Fortunately this album has more great than terrible songs. There are 11 songs in total, with lyrics in Croatian or some hybrid of Yugoslav Croato/Serbian lyrics. There are some excellent songs like “Grad” or “Lenta” and “Odlazim” but there are some terrible kinda folk songs like “Ljubavni rat” that I just couldn´t swallow. The singer Shamso 69 sings better and better with every new album, being more melodic and less folkish apart from some excursions into total folk waters. This is not an excellent album, but it is a decent more punkrock album than folk stuff.
Jaded is hardcore band from Zagreb, Croatia. I once saw them play live here in my hometown at Prostor and they were quite good band. I listened to one album that they did in 2014. and then there was no sign of them for some time.
Now this is their new e.p. and it contains three songs of fast paced anguished hardcore done in an emotional with heart and soul, but also there are nice political underlines in the lyrics of the songs. The lyrics are in Croatian language, they are pretty minimalistic, short but every song hits in the head just right and I think that was how the guys in the band imagined it should be. The music is darkened hardcore, sometimes almost nervous with melodic and sometimes very catchy guitar hooks and the vocals are screamed but also melodic in some parts. This is good hardcore, so go support the guys, get their music, write them something, that they know you listened to their stuff and care for their messages, it means a lot to every one who does music or does something in this scene. Croatian scene is better than ever nowadays.
Wow! To je sve što mogu napisati i reči nakon što sam preslušao više puta prvo studijsko izdanje Midnight Climax, hardcore punk benda čiji članovi dolaze iz različitih gradova, ali bend ima kao sjedište Zagreb.
O ovom bendu je već bilo riječi u ovom webzineu kada sam recenzirao njihov prvi demo kao i radio interview s njima. Gledao sam ovaj bend uživo i mogu samo konstatirati da su uživo još veća hardcore energija nego na albumu. Zaprepastila me uigranost benda kao i odličan glas vokala Heneca. Na albumu se nalazi intro plus osam pjesama totalne hardcore brzine i energije. Album zvuči moćno i nabrijano, što ne čudi pošto je snima i studiu Depth kod Filipa Sertića. Tekstovi pjesama su smisleni, odlični i politički nabrijani i daju dozu bunta, ali sa neke osobne distance i promišljanja, svejedno ostavljajući dosta in your face hardcore udaraca. Tri od ovih osam pjesama sam već čuo na prvom demu, no nema veze, odlično su sjele pošto su sada snimljene kako treba. Na kraju mogu reči da me dugo neki album nije digao kao ovaj na domaćoj hardcore sceni i fali nam ovakvih bendova u doba kada je hardcore evoluirao i više gotovo nitko ne svira jednostavan in your face brzi hardcore punk. Sigurno jedan od kandidata za album godine na domaćoj sceni! Top pjesme: “Spasmic Life”, “Alienation” po mom mišljenju, ali sve su super!
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 