Just a month after our recent insight into the Ukrainian screamo scene, we’re back with yet another great offering from one of the local bands, Odessa’s JANPALACH, featuring ex-members of Mariesena and Yotsuya Kaidan, known for their acclaimed album βΠΡΠΎΡΠΊΠ°β-βΠΊΠΎΠΌΠ΅ΡΠ°β. The band just released their new double single “Thunder in the Distance” / “I Am the Thunder”, which we’re stoked to present and detail below!
“Thunder in the Distance” is an ambient composition created with a big help of Arnas Panica from Berlin based screamo band 70 cmΒ³ of Your Chest. Track “I Am the Thunder” is a small preview of janpalach‘s upcoming LP, which may be ready by the end of this year. The band is still looking for labels that would like to help them make vinyls and cassettes.
Recorded by Yurii Z. at LETA Studio in Odessa, mixed and mastered by Role at Die Tonmeisterei in Oldenburg, the new duo of songs let the band achieve a special intended sound of their own. “We knew that Role, who worked with bands like Alpinist, Zann, Escapado, Svffer, Jungbluth and others, would do everything perfectly.” – admits the band.
Asked about the idea and initial inspirations behind janpalach, the band comments: “Initially, we were inspired by genre affiliation and related music, which was at some point interesting for research and intertwining with other genre trends.”
“Some of us have played in various other bands before, some have even touched musical instruments for the first time. Now we are more inspired by the opportunity to talk with the help of lyrics on current topics that excite us.”
“The spectrum of emotional outburst that our genre contains at the moment helps to place cool accents and highlight in the lyrics what helps to build a vector of perception of the problem under discussion.”
πΌπ‘’π ππππ π πππ ππππ ππ ππππ‘ππ¦, π€βππβ ππ‘ π‘βπ ππππ‘πππ π π‘πππ πππ€ππ¦π π π’πππππ ππ βππ€ πππππππππ‘ππ¦ π‘βπ ππππ‘β ππ π‘βπ π€πππ ππ πππππππ£ππ.
Asked about the meaning of the new offering, the band says that “the thunder is a direct interpretation of rage. One of the most destructive and uncontrollable emotions. It is often caused by the consequences of hidden or obvious injuries.”
The lyrics are about this phenomenon, and all the metaphors in the text eventually come to rage. The track ends with a famous quote from Homer’s Odyssey. “There, according to the plot, the climax comes down to revenge, and revenge is a consequence of rage and imaginary “honor”.” – explains the band.
“Revenge itself is not a creative phenomenon, and here it was interesting for me to reflect on the topic of the root cause of revenge and rash aggressive decisions.”
The song “I Am the Thunder” is one of the puzzles that will complement the concept of a big release at the end, a huge conclusion from which is “self-care”.
“Take care of your mental health.” – concludes the band.
Speaking about the artwork, the band says that they wanted to show the injection before the storm.
“We think that the illustrator Polina Boiarscaia, who worked on the visual art, perfectly understood our idea and turned it into reality.”
Does JANPALACH make Yotsuya Kaidan inactive?
“These are absolutely independent from each other bands.” – confirms the band. “Our bassist has been with janpalach since the band was founded, but it was a period when he was a member of YK. We maintain friendly relations between the bands, and even planned to play a joint show when they announced a reunion, but the drummer left them at the last moment.”
In contrast to the countries of Europe and the world, Ukraine has less stringent quarantine restrictions, but still this didn’t affect the local punk scene in a good way.
“Many shows and festivals were canceled, postponed indefinitely, when we were in the red zone. – comments janpalach.
“Booking agencies, which prepared concerts with performers from abroad, especially suffered. But for now we are in the yellow zone and concerts are held in many places and without any restrictions.”
“It’s a pity that we still have a lot of unvaccinated people, thereby endangering themselves and the people around them. We believe that soon everything will change for the better, the situation will return to normal. And then we can safely tour and play both in Ukraine and in Europe.”
