I think it's possible that Serbian punks Repetitor have the honour of being the first Serbian band to have features on The Sound Of Confusion in the five-and-a-half years we've been running. Their sound is alternative hard-rock, in all its many shapes and forms, which makes for an eclectic and diverse listen that's a bit like being plunged into the icy seas of the Arctic in the way it harshly delivers some of it's songs. As for the lyrics, well we're hoping there's nothing particularly slanderous or offensive about them, but our Serbian (or do they speak Croatian in Serbia?) is non existent, plus we're all for free speech anyway.
You can have a good game of spot the influence here, as they run through sounds borrowed from 60s' garage and proto-metal, the rock giants of the early '70s, the punk explosion, '80s hardcore, grunge and beyond. Needless to say, it's a noisy one. Opener 'Devojke idu u Minhen' would be a great wake up call with its coarse guitars that give way to a ferocious vocal, and following it with the hectic punk of 'Biću bolji' just about seals the deal on that one. These guys have something they want to get off their chests, even if we can't understand what it is. The Gang Of Four-ish 'Šteta' is a highlight with its snappy beat an angular guitars.
It's easy to imagine that a Repetitor live gig is a messy affair, but that's just how this music should be enjoyed. These guys have more energy than a thousand Energizer bunnies. As well as bringing up the sounds of their heroes, they're not averse to a bit of experimenting themselves. 'U pravom trenutku' is post-punk but has their own stamp on it. The buzzing 'Dostupni i laki' (yes, we are copy and pasting these) is another feral blast of electric power, as is the stuttering 'Lica'. The red-raw garage they forge on 'Oktobarski salon' is an interesting update on an old sound. When they do briefly slow the pace on Laka zabava' it makes for a nice change, but all hell is let loose again half way through. We might have no idea what they're on about, but it sounds like a hell of a lot of fun anyway.
Repetitor's website
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Thanks for the info! I wasn't sure as went I went to their website Google translate automatically detected it was in Croatian! Perhaps understandable if they're similar.
ReplyDeleteGoogle Translate automatically treat any Serbian text as Croatian because it assumes the Serbian uses only cyrillic script and Croatian latin which is not correct, because Serbian uses latin as well. Written in latin script, it's probably impossible for a machine to notice the difference using current technology. Maybe in the future.
ReplyDeleteAs for Repetitor, they are incredible alive. There are lot of their live videos on Youtube, take a look.
Great band from Belgrade, which has a big undergound rocknroll scene for many years. Lyrics are great, music kiks ass.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for language, they speak Serbian in Croatia :). That's one language that is called by two very proud nations in two names. The same language is spoken in Bosnia and Montenegro. It used to be called Serbo-Croatian before.
Great! Thanks for all the info guys! I assumed there must have been similarities in the language for all the countries to have existed as Yugoslavia for so long. But I'm sure each separate nation is very proud of its individuality! Just like us in the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland - all proud nations individually as well as together).
ReplyDeleteactually, it's two languages, which are very similar, but still, two languages. serbo-croatian was created from serbian and croatian, not the other way around.
ReplyDeleteand repetitor are great, been to their concert, it was awesome, but the first album (sve što vidim je prvi put, everything i see, i see for the first time) is way better, check it out :)
and you also should hear other alternative bands from serbia:
ReplyDeletestuttgart online, kriške, petrol, stray dogg, bitipatibi, straight mickey and the boys...