What do we Ukrainians fight for in this war? Historian Oleksandr Alforov claims that our national idea is to preserve our people, our land, and the very idea of being a Ukrainian, for future generations. To fulfil this role, we must all accept the idea of being one tiny grain of sand on the beach of Ukrainian history.
But, even living as “tiny grains of sand”, our real lives are here and now, and we must make practical decisions, musicians included. The basic choice for Ukrainians, at least those directly affected by the current existential challenge, lies between saving others’ lives directly and being on the real front line, or helping soldiers in the trenches by volunteering in different ways, from a safer distance. There may be one additional way for artists: the ‘cultural front’. The phrase can be used ironically in the wider context, but the dilemma that lies behind it is quite serious: should you leave everything, your band, your family, your relatively peaceful life, and take a real gun or drone into your hands, or should you turn your music into a bullet? Alferov definitely meant keeping both Ukrainians and our culture alive.
2014 – 2021: Blindness
2014 was the year this war really started, with russians occupying the Crimea and parts of our eastern regions. At the time it was so unrealistic to imagine, or accept: and many Ukrainians ignored this truth mostly or partially. Not that many people were involved in the army and there was no mass mobilisation, or closed borders, so for many musicians, this period of our war went in many ways unnoticed. Yes, we gradually cut our contacts with the russian scene, partially discarded the russian language, and some creatives volunteered or even joined the army, but the topic of an existential crisis between us and our neighbours didn’t show up much in songs or ideas translated to the listener.
Some did see things as they were. Anastasiya Shevchenko, known as СТАСІК, created one of the brightest songs about the war during that period. Being both an actor and a war medic, she recognised what was happening better than many others.
And this is a rare and great example of a “war album”, released in 2017 on the Crimean label, c’était cela notre amour, by, probably, the most beloved Ukrainian screamo band of all time.
According to United Nations statistics, during the 2014 to 2020 period, around 13,000 people – military and civilian – were killed, and nearly 31,000 injured. The scale of this tragedy however was better acknowledged by those living in the eastern regions, including the Kharkiv-based post-hardcore band КАТ, as a reminder that the russians had tried unsuccessfully create a separatist republic in this big regional centre too, but didn’t succeed unlike in Donetsk or Lugansk.
Поклик (The Call) was the third LP album by КАТ, released in March 2022. For many listeners, this was the work that brought them into the “here and now” of the full-scale war as we now define it. The timing to release the LP was truly great. The band had, however, worked on it for a few years, and back in 2017 they had another album with a self-explanatory name, Герника (Guernica). So why did the guys from КАТ see what was happening so vividly, for years, unlike many others? Kyrylo Brener, guitarist and primary lyricist behind The Call, doesn’t have an answer concerning the other bands’ ignorance, but confirmed that КАТ always created their texts and music under the influence of the war russia started in 2014. Brener: “The feeling of anxiety has lived with me since the age of 14, and it never disappeared. I don’t know if this is related to the fact that we lived very close to the border… My friends and I even half-joked that “Putin will attack Kharkiv in a week or two.” So when he really attacked, I think no one was surprised, even if we believed until the last moment that this would not happen.’
Since 2022 КАТ members have lived through a lot, and the band is on pause now. Kyrylo confesses that he lost most of his inspiration to create music, and he now just hopes to survive this war.
2022: The Rise
After the initial shock of February 2022, the situation slowly stabilised. The borders were closed, but because of many people joining the army willingly at that point there was no pressure (as there is now) on musicians who were not ready to do the same. Also, numerous men were simply rejected at that point, because of better or more prepared candidates. Instead, Ukrainian musicians actively volunteered and or started doing what they could – writing new songs, or playing concerts. I have no statistics, but generally it didn’t feel that many artists joined the army in 2022.
Throughout previous articles I have talked of the rise of Ukrainian culture from 2022 onwards, so you can find some numbers and facts there. But just to reiterate one main idea, Ukrainian listeners immediately needed to hear native acts in all niches and genres, so the numbers on Spotify doubled or even tripled for many. New names appeared like mushrooms in the autumn, and established names grew a lot and fast.
But this growth was felt the most in the metal scene (in its widest understanding), as in our country, for whatever reason, this type of music stayed underground, and only a few bands gained true success in wider circles.
White Ward, an Odesa-based post-black band, is an interesting example here. The band gained kudos abroad before 2022 with the magnificent LPs, Futility Report (2017) and Love Exchange Failure (2019), both released by Debemur Morti Productions. This success was obviously recognised in the Ukrainian underground scene, but only with the full-scale war did it feel like White Ward was finally appreciated by the Ukraine media and concertgoers. Andrii Pechatkin, former White Ward vocalist and bassist (who left the band in 2024), admitted in a Rakurs Records interview, that before February 2022, Ukrainians largely felt everything Ukrainian as inferior when compared to anything foreign. In fact, great bands like White Ward or 1914 were sometimes mistaken as being foreign.
It took some time for Ukrainian acts to get back to releasing music in 2022; the stress was too big to handle at first, so their pre-planned third LP False Light helped keep White Ward active in this period.
As of now, White Ward remains in Ukraine, and headlined the only active big rock/metal/indie festival, Faine Misto. The musicians are working on a new album, though the release date can’t be set. At the same time, they are successfully involved in different charity activities. For instance, Andrii, with some help from Neformat, organised two successful lotteries for his own bass-guitars, which raised almost 444 thousand hryvnias ( more than 8 thousand pounds) for our army. This is just one example of how Ukrainian music can be quite successful in helping the struggle. One could gather many more similar examples.
2023: The Growth
If 2022 was an active year despite everything, then 2023 outdid it. All the suppressed creative energy exploded, creating dozens of new singles, collaborations and live performances.
Faine Misto is a big Ukrainian festival, and one of the few oriented towards the rock and metal scene. It had a few competitors during its 11-year history, but the others couldn’t withstand the stress, so only Faine Misto with its proven adaptability during COVID, remains.
In spring 2022 the Faine team turned into a volunteering hub. They contacted, and informed foreign media and artists about the war in Ukraine, while also informing Ukrainians about safe places to shelter from the first missiles. Tetyana Bosiuk, a festival project manager once told Neformat, “We learned to do things that we had no competence for. Every day we had more work, and we mastered new ‘professions’, which, frankly, we would rather never have known about.” The festival of 2022 still happened, although only online, as such a massive event was forbidden by the local government due to the threat of war. Faine Misto still managed to organise a few smaller local festivals, and even one big charity event abroad, together with Polish festival, Rockowa Noc.
In 2023, the real festival was back, with more than 15,000 visitors. Faine Misto found a new safe location in Lviv, courtesy of !FESTrepublic. Given a lack of foreign artists visiting Ukraine, the emphasis was placed on the Ukrainian acts and the Dark Stage now boasted headliners like IGNEA and fast-growing names in the hardcore/metalcore scenes like Sick Solution, True Tough, Telema, 0%Mercury, and Grayshapes. Even niche brutal death metal bands like Schizogen and Fleshgore found their way to the Dark Stage.
The 2023 event raised 4 million hryvnias (around £72,000) and 2024 doubled this tally. The Dаrk Stage line-up was enriched with big local headliners 1914 and White Ward.
The Faine Misto team, thanks to their new agency, Faine Events, organised smaller tours around the whole country and worked with bigger names like True Tough, Ignea, Zwyntar, and Rohata Zhaba. This led to the launch of Faine Bookings in autumn 2023, aimed at Ukrainian rock and metal artists, Sick Solution and Telema being some of their first partners.
The band Sick Solution began in the Vinnytsia metalcore scene back in 2016, but during 2020-2021 changed course towards a eurocore sound. The metalcore background and connections, combined with a brighter sound and image made Sick Solution stand out among their peers. Importantly, the band aimed most of their efforts towards Ukrainian listeners.
Sick Solution’s ambitions bore fruit unexpectedly during the full-scale war. Numerous singles, and collaborations with, it seems, any remotely successful metalcore and (sometimes) indie artist brought wide recognition – and some scorn for not being ‘true’ to their roots; but that’s a story for another time. Along with 0%Mercury, True Tough, or Telema, Sick Solution acts as a “first stop” for a new Ukrainian music market aimed at a heavier metal sound. Sick Solution leader and vocalist Artem Trubetskoi: “The most important factor is that foreign artists no longer come to Ukraine, and Ukrainian listeners started listening to our music. The most vivid example is the growth of streaming: our tracks gained thousands of listens in a couple of days, not months. And concert tickets are bought early.”
‘Now is the golden age of metalcore,” Trubetskoi claims, and I agree with him on this.
A two-year contract with Faine Booking gives access to the full Faine Events database, work contacts all over the country, reliable service for selling tickets, PR support, and many other useful perks. According to Artem, Sick Solution began to appear more in the social networks feed on various platforms, and he saw a different attitude from local organisers, etc.
A lot of this story sounds very positive, despite everything going on. However in my next, and last piece, we turn to an increasingly hard reality facing all of us here in Ukraine.
