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Dollheads - without hesitations, this project is unprecedented for Ukraine. It seems that never before has there existed such talented electronic-rock music with the European sound - and here it is - a real discovery of the festival. http://uaformat.com/
Dollheads, a young and upcoming Ukrainian semi-electronic project, has presented original and specific material. The guys like to try something new, and their experiments are always excellent. The audience found their music new and strange, and therefore it was taken somewhat inadequately. http://rock.kiev.ua/
The team uses rock'n'roll instruments to perform extra heavy drum'n'bass with trance inclinations. They are doing this without any particular aim - just for themselves. http://havefun.cv.ua/
As for the band - this is a creative union of thoughts, skills, and aspirations of the vocalist Vladyslav Halynskyi, drummer Prozorov, who is also the frontman of the band Tol, guitarist Serhiy Koliakov, and bass player Dc. The music of Dollheads is pumping, as they call it. You become addicted to the tracks the very first time you hear them. The music is uncomplicated for perception and mind. The clear rhythmic picture and lyrical independence of the vocalist give each song an individual colouring, which can change dynamically independently of the state of the group members. At present, Dollheads is trying to emerge in a more comprehensible form, give out something, and fix the situation with the concerts. If the guys manage to do this, Ukraine will get one more of the original, conceptually rich groups, which are not so many, as of today. @MUSIC television
DOLLHEADS is a side project of one of the Ukraine's most popular gothic formations - NECROPOLIS. In the beginning of the 90-ies NECROPOLIS was the first and the only gothic rock group in Ukraine combining gothic rock and dark wave with the ethnic elements and English lyrics created by Vladyslav Galynskyi. The Ukrainian Gothic Portal began cooperating (partial info-producing and promoting) with the band in 2000. In 2003, during the first part of the "Ukrainian Gothic Compilation", NECROPOLIS presented its track "Ukrainian Gothic", which became the theme song of the CD and incited the interest towards the group on the part of the international audience. In 2004, upon the suggestion of the Poland's largest underground labels SPV POLAND and BIG BLUE RECORDS, the track "Challenger" was included in the collection of the Eastern Europe's best gothic groups "DARK EAST" (together with KOMU VNYZ and GRAY/SCALE), and was recognized as one of the most original songs.
Stranger http://www.gothic.com.ua/
Dollheads is the new incarnation of the respected group Necropolis, which was named the first Ukrainian gothic group in the beginning of 90-s. In the time of its existence, the team managed to give a jingle at all the main national festivals (Kin, Alternative, Intonation, Chervona Ruta [Red Ruta], Perlyny Sesonu [Pearls of the Season], and Rock-Ekzystencia) and to present itself in the neighbouring countries. The particularities of the style did not presuppose mass popularity, but Necropolis has always had its audience, as well as the authority among its colleagues. Nevertheless, the group did not last till the new millennium. Five years later, almost without changing its members, the team returned to the scene under the name Dollheads. Frankly speaking, it doesn't stand anywhere near the gothic. However, the artists have their own opinion on the issue: "We are not keeping to any particular style, though we are not doing anything fundamentally new, and we are not trying to. At least, we are not engaged in plagiarism. We are not concerned with keeping to the style and fashion of the music industry. Our priority is the freedom of creative work and live performance." Dollheads perform live, but in a sampling manner. The nearest associations are Red Snapper and Kramatorsk-St.Petersburg's Kartel. Outstanding ornate bass, modest guitar, though, well aware of its worth, abundant but unobtrusive electronic effects, pumping the beats with different degrees of ricky-tick and "fishy" lyrics [in non-existent language]. Taken together, all this sounds very tasty. You can try yourself.
Max Vikhot (Afisha magazine#46(189) 24-30 November 2004)
Necropolis is a group standing as a worthy rival to Komu VnyZ in terms of age. The musicians from the City of the Dead started playing gothic rock / post punk in Ukraine in the late 80-ies under the name "The Day that Dies Early" together with Foma (Mandry). They went on concert tours in Ukraine and Russia (concerts in Tver and Saratov at "Indiushata" festival). In 1992 "The Day that Dies Early" broke up and engendered the band Necropolis. Later, Foma created the group Mandry. Due to the fascination with the dark aesthetics (the members of Necropolis used to listen to Bauhaus, Swans, and Dead Can Dance) the group was among the first Ukrainian wave of admirers of this music and lifestyle that were unacceptable for general public. In 1996 the team released its first album "My Three Lives", in which it combined the Ukrainian gothic rock with the dark electronic music. Necropolis was the first Ukrainian group that started singing in English, which, unfortunately, didn't much enhance their popularity at that time. In 2003 Necropolis' track was included in the collection 'Ukrainian Gothic, 1' and became the theme song of the CD. The year of 2004 saw the group's first breakthrough to Europe due to the Ukrainian Gothic Portal: this time the band's song "Challenger", alongside with the tracks of Gray/Scale and Komu Vnyz, entered the collection called "Dark East", which represented the best gothic groups of Eastern Europe and was released by the studios Big Blue and SPV Poland. Now the gothic culture is widespread and after a long, almost ten-year, existence in the underground the team is working on its second album… http://chornarada.kiev.ua/
- Ukraine
Discography
1992 - Necropolis
1994 - Jesus Christ
1996 - Three My Lives
2000 - Gimnasty
2003 - Alien Pink Planes
2008 - Dollheads
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The ghotic technobeat group Dollheads bears such an imprint of emotional detachment that one can easily agree that their previous name - Necropolis - was really to the point. The music of a large city blinking with its lights in the night, though empty. The emergency lights of a paper shop are on, a lonely trolleybus is drifting under the colonnades of a large bridge marking its way with the bright light of the empty passenger compartment, shimmering of the light on an inkjet printer, which has been left with the power on since the last weekend on the fortieth floor of a skyscraper abandoned by the people. The city is breathing, but there are no people. They have gone to sleep. And in their dreams they will see the synthetic waves with the clouds of guitar vibrations joining them from above and resembling the sounds of the outside world, which sometimes encroach on the dream and interrupt it. The group is using the "fish" [non-existent language] as a matter of principle, and if the "chanson style" is the city song, Dollheads is the chanson without lyrics. It brings to mind the shoegazing - the pop of the British rockers of the late 80-s, which was composed as a contrast to Duran-Duran playing in the nearby school disco or Angelo Badalamenti, who had heard too much of Trent Reznor. Generally speaking, of all the gothic groups I know, of the projects existing on the electronic spaces of the Russian-speaking CIS internet, Dollheads is the brightest, in my opinion, if the word "bright" is at all applicable to the Gothicism.
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