Belgrade, Serbia based hardcore band BRONZE are taking their early 2022 release “Ticking Bomb” (Geenger Records) on tour this month, and today we’re stoked to give you all the details, along with the band’s extended commentary on the new release, their local punk scene, and new Serbian hardcore bands worth a check.
“Ticking Bomb” is Bronze’s debut full-length that contains all their studio material recorded from July 2018 to January 2021. It is a flawless, large and energetic album, superbly executed by these veterans of the Serbian hardcore scene.
“The whole album is heavily inspired by the current situation in the world and especially in the Eastern Europe.” – comments BRONZE.
Shortly after the upcoming tour, BRONZE will play the Xmass fest in Sofia, Bulgaria on 17th, then 3 shows in Serbia (Belgrade, Smederevo, Novi Sad), and plan on hitting the studio early next year to record a new EP. “It will be much more chaotic, aggressive, dark and political”, teases the band and invites you to come by at one of their shows if you’re near!
“The latest events did not give us much optimism, therefore we directed our creative energy into more political and social injustices topics. This album is a call to action for our community to step out from a passive observer mode and to activate. Our songs have a strong eyes openning message against all kinds of capitalism, working class repression, fascism and any kind of narrow minded prejudices. They tend to tackle all those daily sufferings of the common folk and try to unite us all in the fight for a better tomorrow.”
Asked about their local music scene, BRONZE admit that Belgrade scene do struggle with alternative and independent spaces. “We have literally one club to perform in (AKAB Okretnica). In a 1.5 million city! Which is, obviously, a huge issue for artists from all kinds of alternative scenes here in, and around the city of Belgrade”.
“On one hand, local politicians are successfully killing all kinds of alternative spaces, communities and clubs. Our local youth centers have been taken over from the local authorities which obviously don’t want us there. Only liberal and apolitical-“we are in this only for the music” bands are welcome out there… On the other hand, some private clubs have raised their prices in the sky, making it impossible to organize a show there anymore…”
Despite the bad venue situation in Belgrade, there is still a lot of shows in Okretnica. Naming some of the bands that performed there, BRONZE gave us a couple of newer and well established names worth a good listen: Majak, Neven, Statico, The Truth, Citizen X, Apsurd, Smet, 3AM.
