Ukrainian aggro atmospheric noise specialists Soom have a new video for from their 2018 album, Djebars, which was a record that bridged gutter-sludge disaffection with an inhumane amount of bombast, landing somewhere between ’90s dark artrock and dirtier, more tonally weighted fare. Atmospherically, “Wheelchair” offers nine-plus minutes of fuckall assault, the coating of filth prevalent in a sense of overarching nastiness. No part of it is aiming toward accessibility, but there is an expressive purpose behind what the band are doing, and their spaciousness both on “Wheelchair” and Djebars as a whole comes coupled with a pervasive claustrophobia. It’s a big world and you are trapped inside yourself.
If the notion freaks you out, you’re probably in a proper headspace for digging into the track, though I’ll say that if you’re sensitive to flashing lights or quick cuts or anything like that, you might be better off hitting up one of the several Bandcamps available as Soom worked with multiple labels on the release of Djebars, among them Robustfellow Productions and Voron Nest. The story is somewhat opaque, but seems to revolve itself around a central character coming to grips with the fact that he’s stuck in time or something thereabouts. Rest assured, the actual video is way more horrifying than that description makes it sound, a cerebral and periodically demonic exercise and psychological fuckery.
But hey, maybe that’s your thing. If it is, go ahead and dig into “Wheelchair” below.
And enjoy:
Soom, “Wheelchair” official video
Slow machine of hate to soberness and impatience to objective reality from the city of Kharkiv (Ukraine), Soom proudly presents their own music video full of fear and loathing mixed with the love to their native city. Made by Anastasia Khomenko, the video tells the story about Djebars, who stuck forever in the moment when clock is working but has stopped on a 19:36 mark. Strong track about wasted spirit for the strong ears commented by the Soom’s frontman Oleksa Kovalov-Blidyi:
“Described story ?s based on a Pale aesthetics. It is neither light, nor dark, just immersed in its own Universe, the road to which lies through the searching of drug hiding place, using the “wheelchair” — bad quality synthetic drugs. For one it’s self-destruction, for another — salvation. It just exists and there is must be no attitude, like to anything in Universe, because everybody has its own way to All & Nothing. We see it like an ugly version of beautiful, let everyone of you see the same”.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 8th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Oh, be certain: weirdness abounds on Soom‘s new full-length, Djebars, which the Ukrainian three-piece will issue on April 20 via no fewer than four labels: Robustfellow Productions, Addicted Label , Kvlt ov I and Voron Nest, and the band could hardly be more at home in that weirdness. Enough so that I’d like to hear them do a cross-continental collaboration Queen Elephantine, just to see what comes out of it — wait until you hear “Wheelchair.” They share some of the ritualistic elements one finds in their countrymen an labelmates Ethereal Riffian, but Djebars, and Soom as whole, are on their own wavelength.
A lo-fi heavy juggernaut Soom which won the attention of many lovers of low-tuned, dark, vicious, filthy, shake-the-fucking-ground metal are releasing their second album via Robustfellow Prods. on the 20th of April.
Soom, who have previously combined heavy weirdness, hypnotic rhythms, otherworldly chanting and ‘recorded in a cavern’ sound with an ancient mysticism grounded in Ukrainian folk, are ready to go further and project the spirit of their native city through unearthly soundscapes of their sophomore album.
Preserving the traditions of the first album, Soom creates a conceptual story, more uncanny in “spoken words”, more chaotic and deeper in music, combining doom metal with dark side of rave and Slobozhansky folk. The result of this mixture is unpredictable, so make sure you are ready for immersion.
Soom was founded in Kharkiv at the end of 2013. The band was set up on the outskirts of the projects that had been lying in the sources of the Kharkiv stoner sludge scene since 2010. After a lot of changes in consciousness, in 2016 the golden composition was formed: Amorth – drums, Tomrer – bass, Kova – guitar and vocals. For the period from 2013 to 2017, Soom recorded three splits with Pressor, Diazepam, Il and Vena, one EP “Fear and Loathing” and one full-length album “Night on the Meadow”. They also got into the Electric Funeral Café compilation from RobustFellow three times.
Posted in Reviews on August 5th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
It starts out unassuming enough with a quiet two-minute intro, but even the title of that track — “The Ledge” — seems to bring out ideas of jumping off into something vast. Sure enough, that’s basically how it plays out as 5R6‘s Islands gets underway with the circular progressive riffing of “Potion” The four-piece of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Igor Zubko, guitarist Kiril Brener, bassist Ievgenii Zinchenko and drummer/backing vocalist/keyboardist/noisemaker Dmytro Zinchenko (one assumes the rhythm section is related) hail from the Ukraine’s fertile heavy underground, in Kharkiv, which along with Kiev about six hours away by car has established a base of bands who cut a wide swath through various styles, creatively open but set in their purposes.
5R6‘s debut album, Islands, basks in a prog metal that owes some of its more intense moments to thrash, but is no less comfortable proffering post-grunge harmonies in “Gasping for Breath” or Nirvana-style jangle and rawness on “The City of X” than it is in the furious chugging in the second half of “Potion.” It can be a strange mix at times, but for Islands, which is released by Robust Fellow Records, that’s very clearly the intent. 5R6 careen through their seven-track/43-minute runtime and ultimately succeed in bringing these stylistic disparities to common ground, and it’s precisely because of this that their debut — recorded at Studio O! in Kharkiv over the course of 14 months by Alex Aizatsky and Dmytro Zinchenko (who also mixed) — succeeds as well as it does.
Over a bed of tense guitar notes and ambient noise, Zubko asks in the first two lines of the album, “I am standing on a ledge/Should I jump with arms oustretched?” He very clearly makes the decision to do just that as the speedier and more intense “Potion” takes hold. One of Islands‘ longer tracks at 7:27, it starts with an almost secondary intro behind “The Ledge,” but no question that the leadoff cut brings an immediate sense of atmosphere to bolster the proceedings that follow. Teeth-clenched riffing opens up a bit in the chorus before shifting into a section of Megadeth-esque speed-chugging in a preview for the apex of the song still to come. They make their way back through the verse and into an intricate bridge over tom runs and back through the chorus before reverting back to that same headbang-worthy groove, which this time carries the song out with a couple shouted final lines. “This River” is shorter and offers a less frantic vibe overall, starting off quiet and moving fluidly through introducing a kind of prog-grunge with its foundation in the creative drum work of Zinchenko.
A distinctly ’90s feel is pushed even further in the midsection of “This River,” which features one of the record’s best hooks and brings in heavier crash late before finishing melodic and leading smoothly into centerpiece “TV Snow,” the shortest (intro aside) song on Islands at 4:58 and a more straight-ahead thrust initially that breaks just before two minutes in to a stretch of minimal guitar and drums and spoken word/sampling that leads once more into a heavier surge, more bounce in the riff, but pushing toward the apex efficiently and paying off the first half of the album in the process as it makes way for the final three tracks.
That trio of cuts — “Gasping for Breath,” “The City of X” and closer “Islands” — all top seven minutes and very much have a side-B spirit to them in terms of how they expand the palette from what 5R6 are doing in the first four. Even though my copy of Islands is a CD and Robust Fellow‘s tape version seems to either move or eliminate “Gasping for Breath,” this split is evident as that song follows the pattern of opening gradually before shifting into heavier fare while also introducing more complex vocal arrangements. “TV Snow” previewed some of that, so the change isn’t out of nowhere, and it makes sense that 5R6 would work some Alice in Chains influence into their already potent brew. Perhaps most effective because of its more patient roll, “Gasping for Breath” leads to the straight-up grunge jangle and punkish forward thrust of “The City of X,” which plays a back and forth initially in quieting down to make room for the verses before resuming the rush for the chorus.
Past its halfway point, the song works through a bridge and back to the hook before an ending instrumental section takes hold at 5:26 that carries the last two minutes to their final fadeout, feeling a little tacked on, but serving atmospheric purpose all the same going into the concluding title-track. Granted, “Islands” would seem to have a difficult task in summing up the record that shares its name, but 5R6 don’t necessarily seem interested at the end in tying up loose ends that have already been tied up so much as pushing the limits further. In so doing, they wind up with a fitting summary anyhow. A single linear build plays out from the ground up and pushes through a finish that’s never out of control but still suitably vibrant, and the album ends quietly, as thoughtfully as it began.
If you were looking for a central theme to Islands, thoughtfulness would be a good start. As 5R6‘s first full-length, its cohesion and complexity would seem to signal that the band are not only willing to put clear time and effort into developing their material and level of performance, but that they have a burgeoning ability to balance aggression and fluidity in a way that makes their songwriting richer. That can only bode well going forward.
