Shlem

Shlem is a metal band from Kosovo. When Kosovo 2.0 met them in 2017 they were a young band with seven songs written, and the magazine wrote that they were "making sure the torch of Kosovo's metal scene isn't completely extinguished". Bassist Artea Bajri explained that they mix metal with elements of punk and stoner rock, depending on how they feel.

The line-up then was singer Lirim Gashi, Artea Bajri on bass, Florent Bajrami on drums and Almir Fazlijevic on guitar. Bajri has played bass since she was twelve and is the daughter of the jazz musician Ilir Bajri. Bajrami started drumming at thirteen and had played in Sledge Stoner, a band that broke up for lack of money. Fazlijevic came to Kosovo in 2008 and formed MadGod, which he calls the heaviest band ever in Kosovo.

Finding stages was hard: Bajrami said nobody wanted to book metal bands in Prishtina. In December 2018 Shlem played the Resist Winter Gathering, a private show of punk and metal bands in Fushë Kosovë, between Sotap and Frisson. The reviewer wrote that they "sounded as an earthquake", playing a slow, dirty stoner sludge that recalled Crowbar, and that they also played a few Korn songs. On 1 January 2019 the three bands shared the stage again at Termokiss.

Their debut album, simply called Shlem, came out on 29 August 2024 on Defy Them Records, the label run by members of the Kosovo metal band Diadema. It mixes English and Albanian songs, among them "Am sick of it", "Swampy", "Kanga e Lekës", "Kujt i ke ga?" and "N'Prishtin u ktheve", and "Menstruation Situation" recorded with Vëllezërit Mllefi.