Trobecove Krušne Peći-S Mukom Žvaču Trubadurov Vrat LP (Doomtown, 2014)

You have to love a band that includes aquarium ambience on the first track. From what I understand, Zagreb's  Trobecove Krušne Peći (TKP) were a seminal part of the former Yugoslavia's underground scene in the early '80s. They never released a full record, so Doomtown has collected their recorded output for a latter-day artifact from the days of samizdat culture. 

This is taut, hop-along-jerk-along postpunk akin to [insert here the names of all the bands you're waiting for me to reference]. Like a lot of the European post-punk of the period, it sounds like dub with all the rhythm flattened out and compressed into a tin box: what comes through is the anxiety and brooding, with none of the expansiveness. That's not a criticism-most of the best post-punk worked in that manner. "Zvijezda" is, for my money, the best song here: it stutters along in an offkilter, stumblebum way, with bass and scratchy guitar notes merging with what sounds like seagull noises. "Boje Noć U Krv" could be a Brainbombs tune, stripped of the squalling dissonance-it's built around a lone horn twiling away as the singer intones about, well, something. In a bark that reminds me of the Brainbombs' singer. 

My guess is that one misses a lot by not understanding Croat (I don't), but the music is top-notch, neurotic Iron Curtain punk from the dying days of Tito's "Real Existing Socialism." You keep waiting for the explosion, and it never comes-history would take care of that a little later, of course. 

You can check out TKP here.  Doomtown has released this on a double LP with a fancy insert detailing the history of the band. If you're a geek for all things '80s and all things post-punk, as I am, you should probably get your ass over to Doomtown's site and BUY IT IF YOU LIKE IT!

 

Kurve-Su Bolje Majke EP (2012)

I've come to expect good things of a strange kind whenever eastern European punk* winds up on my review pile. For whatever reason, these bands rarely sound like they're simply stealing Mick Jones' ot Greg Ginn's best ideas and ruining them.  It's possible that isolation and lack of automatic attention have a roll in this. When no one outside your language group's gonna listen to you simply because of American cultural hegemony and Anglophone provincialism, that gives you the freedom to do whatever you want.

If they were from the States, Zagreb's Kurve would be huge. The band specializes in massive, tuneful guitar riffs bolstered by an airtight rhythm section. The result is five tracks falling somewhere between Leatherface and heavy blues. In other words, this is great rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' roll made for singing along to. Rock 'n' roll made for getting drunk on a Saturday night and puking on your parents' couch, then throwing bricks at cops on Sunday morning. There's a more intelligent undercurrent to Kurve, though:"Ravno U Srce" opens with a idiosyncratic prologue part-dub, part-a capella hymn. Then the usual chaos begins. Mayhaps they've been studying up on their Grazhdanskaya Oborna LPs?

This woulda been on my Best of 2012 lists, if I had known about it. You should give it a spin (you can download it for free HERE) then BUY IT, here. Like the person who recommended them to me said, "this band would be huge if they weren't from here [Croatia]."

*Of course, this is a broad term. I use it to refer to bands from the European part of the old USSR, the countries of the Warsaw Pact, or those in what once comprised the non-Austrian parts of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire (look it up on Wikipedia if you don't know what that is, lunkhead). 

Black Gust-Psychedelic Maelstrom 7" EP (Doomtown Records, 2013)

Somewhere around 2006, lots of hardcore kids started smoking weed and re-discovered the weird end of mid-'80s hardcore. Maybe everyone was burnt out on the early-'00s revival of early '80s HC (notice a 20-year cyclical pattern here, kiddies?), maybe people my age starting having sex and became real people; anyway, all of a sudden you'd be doing bong rips to Bl'ast instead of chugging bad beer to the Jerks.

The heavy, drawn-out, slightly more considered sound of bands like Bl'ast is alive 'n' well with Zagreb's Black Gust. Black Gust dishes out 6 tracks of mid-tempo HC that falls somewhere between Leatherface and Annihilation Time. Just when you think they're gonna speed it up, they change time and slow it down. This is the sorta band that could, based on musical skillz, be doing something stupid like selling lots of records, but instead are making music they enjoy playing. They threw me for a loop with "Reinventing Lexicon Devil"-I always appreciate it when the kids have a sense of history, and this sounds like what'd happen if Darby bothered learning how to sing, and Pat Smear stopped huffing glue long enough to teach the drummer how to keep a beat.

I'd recommend this as one of the better hardcore EPs of 2013. Lots of us prefer getting high to Wu-Tang or King Tubby, but this is great for getting ripped. Especially if you have a Christmas break coming up and are staying at mom's house for it.  Throw this on at the holiday party and teach yr momma how to slamdance!

Get started on mom's tutorial here! Then buy the real deal from Zagreb's Doomtown Records!

Divided Minds-s/t tape (Doomtown Rex, 2013)

One of the reasons I started this blog was to scream and shout (textually, that is) in English about bands whose native language ain't said bastard tongue, in an effort to force you fuckers to check out non-Anglo bastard noise. So I'm always happy to rave about another Eastern European punk band,* and this time it's Zagreb, Croatia's Divided Minds.

DM traffiks in the same sorta mid-tempo slopcore we know and love from such past luminaries as Young Wasteners and The Observers. But both those bands just ripped off these guys or even The almighty Saints, you're saying to yourself. So what? Since Sham 69 started by stealing Mick Jones' best riffs, punk has meant nothing more than making good choices about who you wanna steal ideas from, musically or politically.

So Divided Minds does a good job of it! My favorite track is "Close to Death," which as far as I can tell is sung in Croat (I dunno which dialect, I understand that there's 3). Snazzy, mid-tempo punk much like the bands I mentioned above. Although "Black and Blank" is even better: neurotic, nervous, jerky punk that never slides into sheer ripoff runoff slop.

The cover looks like a cheap Discharge offprint, but don't let that deter you (or, depending on who you are, that's an endorsement). Check it out, THEN BUY IT, on bandcamp. Brought to ya care of Doomtown Records, Zagreb's best. DT Recs also dropped the Nuclear Spring 7", which you should be blasting as you get blackout drunk, RIGHT NOW. You haven't heard Nuclear Spring, you say? What are you, wicked, or something? Jeez.

*NOT a Warsaw Pact nation, thanks to lokalpatriot for the correction. All hail Comrade Tito!