Kpax! Kpax! LP
Don’t believe the cover, as the mutant-looking creatures in a melting town suggested this might be some falling-apart, naive hardcore. It is quite the opposite—KPAX! from Belgrade plays rigid Oi!; there is no song under two minutes and the pace rarely goes above mid-tempo. Big-scale melodies mix with simplified rock-ish sound, all in Serbian. The singer has a great voice, and the mixing makes it sound like one person singing in the name of at least a factory of desperate people. Guitars have a nicely adjusted sound delivering post-punk tones here and there, and the parts are way more creative than Oi! usually is. Overall, they have a great balance between modern and classic local sounds, between Oi! and post-punk, between careless and determined vocals. All these dualities make the record interesting and fun—for my preferences, it is really long, but at least you got material for your money.