3.5/5★
Despite being a music enthusiast, metal is a genre I have not spent enough time exploring. Yet even so, the collective Quemmekh quickly caught my ear with their accessible take on metal and eclectic non-metal subgenres blended in. I soon became haunted by one of their songs, which stayed with me for weeks — that song was from their 2023 album Nostalgia.
Quemmekh (‘cannon’ in Georgian) is self-described on their Bandcamp page as ‘a post-industrial war machine born in Tbilisi’. The band only has two core members: Sandro Kerauli as the frontperson, covering vocals and guitars, while Dachi Dodashvili plays bass guitar. However, there are other members who have contributed to the band at different stages, including performers, songwriters, and visual artists. The fluid structure of the band and large scope of involvement present the band as an art syndicate rather than one of your run-of-the-mill, fixed-lineup rock bands.
Nostalgia was released by Quemmekh in 2023. Compared to other albums of theirs, this one is noticeably less metal. In fact, only the first three tracks are metal, while the rest of the album moves toward a more melancholic and reflective sound. The music and lyrics are all original, save for the last song, a cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’, reimagined as French disco or 1970s-style disco — an unmistakably playful and ironic cap on an otherwise heavy-hearted record.
The album opens with ‘Mtatsminda’, which nicely piques the listener’s curiosity. The song starts with a brief sample of protesters chanting ‘Monebo!’ (‘Slaves!’), followed by silence and then a delightfully dreamy motif of guitars and percussion. For a moment, it feels like a summer evening’s party in Tbilisi’s Mtatsminda hills.
The calm is short-lived. A tense bassline begins and things turn dark, giving way to the lyrics:
And I don't feel like myself anymore
I can't move anymore
I'm no longer standing in a field of flowers
Only fire dreams again
I genuinely love the first minute of the opening track, though I feel the rest of the song is somewhat drawn out and longer than need be. The second track is similarly expansive at nearly seven minutes, making us wait a while for the album’s thematic core.
This pacing aligns with the band’s rejection of commercial music. In an article published by Billboard Georgia, Kerauli notes that Quemmekh believes the social and political challenges Georgian society faces demand reflection and critique rather than entertainment.
That philosophy is especially evident in Quemmekh’s vocal approach. There’s little in the way of commercially friendly melodic singing, nor is there death-metal growling. Instead, Kerauli uses more of an abrasive style of strained chanting and shouting throughout much of the album — the result being emotion-driven and grounded in lyrical content more than anything else.
One of the songs on the album is a masterpiece. Track five, titled ‘Roini Qardava’, sends a shiver down your spine and could well be part of a movie soundtrack. The song is full of tense, electronic elements layered over a reverbed drum beat. Much of it is instrumental, punctuated twice by a chorus that is intensely dramatic with a heavy chord progression that stirs a lot of emotions: vengeful, sad, angry, eerie.
The words ‘If you have to stay here, go’ are repeated throughout the song, followed by, ‘Don't be as bad as a hungry dog’. The theme is hard to miss — one of departure from a place or condition that is no longer healthy or meaningful, but corrosive — an environment that turns you into a monster. The song also includes simple repeating streams of words like ‘work, sow, pray, count, eat’, looping the sequence. This gives a ritualistic feel that emphasises the monotony of life’s basic actions.
All of this takes place before the heart-wrenching chorus returns: ‘And the waves quietly recede at dawn’. You can almost imagine the waves pulling back to reveal a hellish, hair-raising underworld below.
Among the many themes on the album, there is a consistency of restlessness and desire to get out of situations that are harmful, as well as the need to become aware of vicious cyclical defeat.
One example of this is the opening lyrics of the track ‘Nichs’:
You live and struggle
And try to become someone
You fight and regret
To be like others
You want to stop, stay and finish
But either you die or you have to be purified
The track ‘Ajanydi’ also reinforces awareness of being trapped in a dysfunctional place:
And don't sleep peacefully tonight
Rebel
Because you've lost your mind
Rebel
Because you can be sold
Rebel
As with many great lyrics, much is left open to interpretation. It’s up to the listener to determine whether the struggle in each song is one within a broader toxic society, within a family, relationship, at work, or a struggle within oneself.
In the Billboard article, Kerauli says, ‘We want society to understand the real meaning of personal freedom and learn to find the right way out of different situations. Given the reality of our country, as artists, we do not have the resources to create corporate music, have a beautiful band and play it to put people in a good mood’.
For that reason, Nostalgia may not be for the light-hearted. Overall, I admire Quemmekh’s work and the conceptualisation behind their project. I’d recommend checking out Nostalgia as well as other albums by the band, many of which deviate from any single consistent style. While most of the songs on the album are not exactly to my taste, a few of them hit hard. And one, of course, is legendary.
