Compilation albums have always been hard to review. Best-of collections rarely have narrative shape; they’re sequences of hits that exist in isolation from each other, curated for parties, events, and unfocused listening. But compilations in the world of scene documentation and artist discovery serve a different purpose.
Filip Stojiljković, a friend of the site who we interviewed earlier this year, runs Dekonstrukcija Yugoviolence, a blog he started in October 2022 with a simple intention: to document a small corner of the former Yugoslav emo and screamo underground. Nearly four years later, that archive spans hundreds of bands, interviews, photographs, and releases. gledaju nas kao ptice — “they look at us like birds” — is his first compilation release, archiving a thriving local scene.
The EX-YU compilations I’ve spent time with over the past couple of years, punk anthologies and Yugoslav jazz collections from the 70s and 80s, have been among my most useful tools for discovery. Artists I’d never have found otherwise, captured at a specific point in time. gledaju nas kao ptice fulfils the same noble purpose. In twenty years, someone digging through the EX-YU underground of the 2020s will find this release and understand what was happening across the region: 18 bands from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo, connected by underground values and an ignorance of borders.
The spoken word opening from Filip’s own tužan dečak kavr bend sets the tone with a title phrase delivered before the record tears into distorted guitars and shrieked vocals.
What follows is a wide sweep of the scene’s range: emoviolence, screamo, post-hardcore, shoegaze, Midwest emo, alt-rock, acoustic ballads. Sockholes and Mallard offer lighter, nostalgic acoustic emo moments that sit in striking contrast to the rawer material around them. Lars from Norway brings a thicker, shoegaze-inflected sound. Sivo take things into heavier post-rock territory, gritty and instrumental, closer to post-rock than hardcore.
Several acts here are already familiar: Suplexx from Belgrade, Zbrucz from Slovenia, Mallard from Skopje, but the compilation earns its keep through the discoveries. YÖU’s I Failed Me arrives near the end as a hard-hitting post-hardcore track with genuinely strong guitar work across nearly five minutes, a band I’d never encountered before. Zbrucz’s Me vidiš kot sem? is a standout moment from their 2024 album Riparia riparia — a record I intend to return to properly.
The rawness towards the end — IDrownedInTitograd, Eeyore, Plastic Flowers, some of it from as recently as 2026 — is what makes this feel genuinely alive rather than retrospective.
Filip wrote in his notes for this release: “I hope this release encourages people to discover bands beyond their own cities and countries, to support one another, and to keep building new connections throughout the region.” It’s a modest ambition for something that achieves considerably more than that.
Where to Find Them
- Bandcamp: listen & support on Bandcamp
