Sofia Hardcore Band Expectations Grow Older Without Settling Down on My Last Time to Shine

Expectations formed in Sofia in 2009, when the melodic hardcore that had flourished throughout the early ’00s still had a strong hold on the local scene. After the country joined the EU in 2007, Bulgarian bands had more opportunities to record in better studios and take their music beyond the country’s borders. Plenty of bands came and went, but few took the route Expectations did, and fewer still have remained this active and productive for more than 15 years. Somewhere along the way, Expectations became one of those bands whose importance to the local scene goes well beyond their four albums and countless shows.

Expectations haven’t become Bulgaria’s big musical export or landed on some popular label, but they have succeeded at something much closer to home. They can bring together people who otherwise rarely end up at the same show, playing small DIY spaces, benefit shows, and bigger festivals with the same welcoming attitude. There’s no entrance exam for this scene and no requirement to have been around since the first demo. For a band whose music and lineup have changed considerably over the years, that openness and refusal to gatekeep have remained remarkably consistent.

Arriving on September 25, My Last Time to Shine is the band’s fifth album and the first recorded by the current lineup of Georgi Dimitrov on vocals, Mihail Slavov and Andrey Genchev on guitars, Nedi Miladinov on drums, and Angel Simitchiev on bass. It feels like the fullest realization of what this band can do, with eleven songs that take their familiar melodic post-hardcore melancholy through hardcore, post-punk, ’00s metalcore, and even hints of pop and a shoegaze sheen. There’s a lot going on, and the changes in tempo, mood, and approach make for a proper rollercoaster. The five-piece pull these ideas together, while Georgi delivers some of his most diverse vocals yet, moving between screaming, singing, and the strained space in between according to what each song needs.

I’ll be honest that much of this record is pretty far from what I usually want to hear in hardcore. Hearing any one of these tracks in isolation could easily have made me pass on the whole thing, with “Young Forever,” featuring guest vocals by Odd Crew’s Vasko Raykov, being perhaps the most extreme example. I might have written Expectations off as another former hardcore band trying to sound “different” and “original” later in their career by cramming too many non-hardcore influences and too much clean singing into their songs. Across the full album, though, these detours make more sense. The shifts suit a record that’s restless and emotionally all over the place, and the more accessible moments belong to that picture as much as the anger does. In the end, I don’t have to love every individual choice to appreciate how much heart they put into the whole thing.

That willingness to move beyond their starting point has been there for a while. In 2022, Georgi described their previous album, Heartless, Shallow and Cruel, as a reflection of the band getting older. My Last Time to Shine takes that idea further. Growing older hasn’t made these songs calmer or given their narrator all the answers. There’s still resentment, uncertainty, and the embarrassing realization that recognizing your own problems doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to fix them.

“Venom Eyes,” featuring guest vocals from Last Hope’s Aleksandar Boyadzhiev, starts in familiar hardcore territory, both musically and lyrically, calling out someone whose lies have become hard to ignore. “I Look Good in Black” opens with Georgi suggesting that he should have picked up a saxophone instead of a microphone, then reassuring himself that at least the outfit works. Sawber’s Stavros Spyrou actually contributes the saxophone part, which is one of my favorite moments on the record, so the line comes with its own guest performer. “The Rules of the House” and “Uncertainty” get more personal: what if you’re too tired to keep trying, unable to commit, or the reason everything is falling apart?

Love runs through almost everything here, although it doesn’t look particularly healthy or reassuring. “Until You Love Me” pushes the desire to be wanted into self-erasure. “99% Love” pulls in the opposite direction, demanding total commitment and preferring a painful ending to an indefinitely miserable relationship. Put together, these songs capture how easily the need for closeness turns into impossible expectations, dependence, or the desire to walk away. Georgi doesn’t write from a position of having sorted any of this out. That vulnerability is a large part of why both older listeners and so many younger kids find part of themselves and sing along to the band’s lyrics.

The album title takes on a darker meaning in “Say Hello,” where the desire for one last moment of recognition is mixed with shame, judgment, and withdrawal. Later, “I Against I” turns even more introspective, pairing some ugly admissions with gratitude toward the people who stayed around to help. “Sugar & Spice” holds on to the hope that there’s still time for love and kindness, while the closer, “To the Grave,” returns to abandonment and accumulated emotional damage with a more aggressive hardcore sound. Feeling grateful or hopeful one day doesn’t prevent you from ending up back in a dark place the next.

Recorded by Expectations’ own Mihail Slavov and mixed and mastered by longtime collaborator Marius Costache in Bucharest, with artwork by Silvana Ilieva, My Last Time to Shine carries plenty of shared history into its new directions. There’s more to it than any single song can convey, just as there’s more to Expectations, and more expectations, than one particular version of their sound. After all these years, they’re still making room for new ideas and new people. That feels like a good reason to keep going.

My Last Time to Shine is out September 25, 2026, on LP, CD, and digitally through Balkan Sprachbund and Bound By Modern Age Records.