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10/01/2007
Yiddish Death Metal
Q: How do you resurrect a dying language with a rich cultural history?
A: Death metal.
The Jewish Daily Forward reports on Gevolt, a Russian-Israeli band that rearranges and performs traditional Yiddish songs like Tum Balalaika as death metal. The Forward praises the band's work and also brings up some of the contradictions they embody:
The band’s music is not a pasquinade, but rather a nuanced embrace of both serious Yiddish lyrics and serious metal traditions. Gevolt’s rendition of the traditional “Tum Balalaika,” casts clean, articulate vocals against a chilling background of liquid metal that closely resembles the German Neue Deutsche Harte (New German hardness) movement.
I listened to a few tunes on the band's MySpace page, and I have to admit that I'm impressed with (and surprised by) the way Tum Balalaika's klezmer and metal elements don't cancel each other out, and instead, in fact, bounce off of each other.
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