Ukrainian Prog Metalcore four-piece Jinjer have a lot to be angry about. They’re not a group that trends toward lighter feelings, but “Duel”, their fifth LP, feels angry and aggressive with its opening bar.
And, honestly, what more could you expect? Their nation has been under attack for three years now. And while Jinjer announced an indefinite hiatus in March of 2022 so they could focus on relief efforts, they were then labeled as cultural ambassadors in June, allowing them to resume their touring and creative efforts. Of course, actually creating and recording music in a war zone would be challenging, to say the least, so the band have relocated to the US for the time being.
Given the recent turn in US politics, I’d say the band is probably angrier than ever, and at least three songs on the album can be read as statements on the war — “Rogue”, “A Tongue So Sly”, and title and closing track “Duel”.
Jinjer is a fairly unique Metalcore group. Often, they don’t sound like most other bands in that space, and this can be attributed to a few factors. First, the band puts a lot of emphasis on their Groove Metal sound. I have to confess that this is a subgenre that I’m not very well versed in, but the genre materialized in the early 90s, and includes acts like Pantera, Lamb of God, and White Zombie. The genre is sometimes also called Post-Thrash or Neo Thrash, so there are obviously a lot of Thrash elements here. But the focus, as stated on Metal Wiki, is more on that feeling of heaviness than speed, which means low-tuned guitars and a mix that brings the bass forward; and both guitar and bass have an emphasis on rhythmic lines.
It’s worth noting that none of Jinjer’s current members are original members, but three of them joined around 2009-2011, between the band’s first and second EPs. These three include guitarist Roman Ibramkhalilov and bassist Eugene Abdukhanov. These two gentlemen create a significant sonic foundation in each song; the band is only a four-piece, but Jinjer never sounds anything less than big and bold.
The third pseudo-original member is vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk. If modern Metal has superstars, Shmayluk is one of them.1 Her cleans are angelic, and her growls are brutally demonic. Most Metalcore acts seem to aim for lofty screams, but everything about Jinjer pivots toward that Groove Metal heaviness. The best way to illustrate the difference is with the this video of Shmayluk’s guest performance with Spiritbox last year.
There are several parallels between these bands:
Both are considered to be banner-carriers for modern Metal;
Both are Metalcore;
Both have beloved frontwomen (Spiritbox’s vocalist is Courtney LaPlante).2
At around the 2:45 mark in the video linked above, we reach the point of the song where both switch to harsh vox. LaPlante’s screams are in line with the timbre that Metalcore acts, in my experience, trend toward; but Shmayluk’s harsh vocals seem to come from somewhere else — some place deep and dark. The pair of them together are outstanding, and the performance got a lot of attention due to the dynamic felt in that last third of the song.
Within Jinjer, Shmayluk’s deeper growls work well with the rest of the band’s low-tuned approach. I’ve made my opinions on harsh vocals pretty clear, previously, but I can’t deny that it works; nor can I deny that, as harsh execution goes, Shmayluk has something that most others just don’t — which is probably why she has such a devoted fanbase.3
The final member of the band is drummer Vladislav Ulasevich, who is the band’s fifth drummer, but also the longest-tenured, having joined in 2016. I’ve gotta say that he’s clearly an incredibly talented and technical drummer. The actual performance of the drum line typically fades into the background for me, but there are many points on Duel where Ulasevich’s performance noticeably heightens sections or even entire songs.
Despite the reliance on harsh vocals throughout the album, I genuinely enjoy every song. Duel is a rip-roaring ride, start-to-finish, with all eleven songs taking a combined 43 minutes to complete. The album is built on that thick Groove foundation, but is also punctuated with moments of gorgeous melodicism, with the most notable example coming in “Green Serpent”, a song about the dangers of addiction and alcoholism.
Each of the songs on the album is pointed, even if the album at-large really isn’t. Kerrang! had an interview with Shmayluk where she talked through the meaning of each song, for those interested. But it doesn’t really go into what this album truly is, at least for Shmayluk: it’s the first album she wrote completely sober, as she revealed to Revolver. The Revolver interview is a bit more wide-ranging. It also touches on the meanings of songs, but is more focused on Shmayluk’s mental state and the place she has found herself occupying over the last year or so, which has informed the creation of Duel. She reveals there just how very personal some of these songs are, especially “Green Serpent” and “Kafka”.
English isn’t Shmayluk’s first language, so don’t go looking at the lyrics expecting S-teir poetry; with that said, the lyricism is good, often with thickly-layered metaphor.
I don’t expect this to be an album that most people can enjoy — Jinjer leans into the “Extreme” side of Metal, emphasizing the heavier, harsher aspects of the genre’s tendencies. That fact is what gives the negative Angry Metal Guy review some credence (see footnote 3 for more). Most specifically, is the basic structure, which AMG reviewer Dolphin Whisperer sums up as “…the well-worn path of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus…”, and he isn’t wrong. The band still utilizes some proggy elements here and there, but the songs are largely chained to the mainstream standard, which is not generally appealing to the people who are drawn to Extreme Metal.
To underscore this point, ten of the eleven songs fall within a delta of 1:13, with the longest of those songs not quite hitting the four-and-a-half minute mark. The longest song on the album, “Duel”, manages to come just twelve seconds shy of five minutes. The only real variations to be found are the tempo and the length of the solos or instrumental sections within the songs, and that doesn’t vary too much, either.
To sum up, Duel isn’t for everyone, and even the people it’s for might take issue with how it presents itself. But if you like Metalcore, Thrash, or harsh vocals, you’ll probably find something to enjoy here, anyhow; if you’re willing to give it a chance and enjoy it for what it is, it’s good.
Rating: Green
I’ll also note that, as I write this, Spiritbox’s new album is sitting in my backlog…
On the downside, Dolphin Whisperer’s review of Duel for Angry Metal Guy accuses the album of leaning too much on “Shmayluk’s charisma.” I find this accusation to be a bit harsh, though he levies a couple of legitimate complaints, which I discuss later in this review, in support of this notion.