Block Out

Block Out was an alternative rock band from Belgrade, Serbia, active from 1990 to 2014, whose music drew on hard rock, grunge, metal, psychedelia and art rock. It began in late 1990 as the hard rock band Ad Hoc, with singer Milutin Jovančić "Mita"; since another band already had that name, they renamed themselves after a popular computer game, the phrase also being slang for the moment before blacking out. In 1991 guitarist Nikola Vranjković, who had spent four years in Moscow, joined and soon became the band's creative core.

At the start of the Yugoslav wars the band moved to London and played clubs there, but had to return to Belgrade in 1992, where drummer Miljko Radonjić joined. Their studio debut, Crno, belo i srebrno (1994), won the Belgrade city assembly's award for the best rock record of the year. Its first half gave them the minor hits "Sanjaj me" and "Kiša", while the darker second half carried Vranjković's songs about depression and hopelessness in wartime Serbia. Madame Piano sang backing vocals at the album's launch concert at the SKC.

Godina sirotinjske zabave (1996), with "Manastir", dealt with the end of socialism and the changes that followed, and San koji srećan sanjaš sam (1998), with "Zvezdane staze" and "Armatura", was widely acclaimed; Jovančić made the band's artistic music videos. The live album Između dva zla came out in 2001, the band covered Ekatarina Velika's "Soba" on a Milan Mladenović tribute in 2002, and Ako imaš s kim i gde (2004), produced by Vranjković, was their last studio album. They opened for Kaiser Chiefs at the Belgrade Arena in 2007, released a cover of U Škripcu's "Beograd spava" in 2011 and played the IQ Festival with Marilyn Manson and Laibach in 2012.

Vranjković played his last show with the band on 1 September 2013 in Niš, alongside Van Gogh and Bajaga i Instruktori, and was then excluded. The single "Reka" followed with Riblja Čorba frontman Bora Đorđević on backing vocals, and in 2014, after Vranjković registered the name, the remaining four members carried on as Čovek Vuk.

In 2021 Godina sirotinjske zabave was ranked 20th and San koji srećan sanjaš sam 26th among the 100 best Serbian albums since the breakup of Yugoslavia. In the Rock Express Top 100 Yugoslav Rock Songs of All Times, a poll of the Serbian magazine Rock Express, started in 1999 and published in 2000, in which more than 3,400 readers, 120 journalists and critics and 100 musicians each chose five songs, "Manastir" was ranked 100th.