Plastika – Sijamski Blizanac

I’ve had a lot of things coming along as I am writing this. In fact, I keep a list of albums to review, especially at this time of year. This is one of my most anticipated, particularly where Ex-Yu hardcore punk is concerned, and I sure as hell want to talk about Zagreb’s Plastika.

Plastika is a relatively new four-piece feminist punk band from Zagreb, Croatia. They released their self-titled 2023 album, quickly cementing themselves as a fresh voice in the Croatian DIY punk scene. Sijamski Blizanac is their second full-length album. Like its predecessor, it clocks in at just under 15 minutes, with most tracks under two minutes.

The album kicks off with a lone voice belting, pent-up anger spilling out: “šta da radim kad sam tupa / svaki dan je nova muka,” (what am I supposed to do when I feel numb?
/ every day is a new torment) and wastes no time with its introduction: fast, raw, pissed-off hardcore energy. It sits right alongside raw, frustrated hardcore punk classics like Devastation, Katma, Nausea, and The Harness.

The lyrics read like the diary of someone exhausted by the machinery of capitalism, media, war, and social decay. There’s the emotional toll of repeated trauma (“Otrov”), the grinding monotony of daily life and its desperate escapism (“K.P.M.”, shouting out Medika, Zagreb’s DIY squat), class rage (“Nervoza”), disillusionment with propaganda (“Mukka, prodaj mi sranje”), and the attempt to reclaim agency before death (“Plešem”). Nationalist obsession with war surfaces in “Moraju past,” “Zauvijek mlad,” and “Nije zadnja,” all delivered with unapologetic clarity and blunt force.

“Moraju past” hits especially close to home. Decades after the war, nationalist war criminals are being rehabilitated and protected by the working class; people fed lies and left to suffer the consequences, washing the blood off those who should have faced justice. Anyone who knows what really went down has every reason to feel rage. I applaud Plastika, and every band confronting this reality. The Nazis must fall.