Srd

Srd is a Slovenian black metal band, founded in 2016 in Murska Sobota and based in Ljubljana since 2021. Its music is the work of Goran Slekovec, composer, lyricist and singer, and the band is known for singing in Slovenian, and lately also in the Prekmurje dialect.

The band dates its start to September 2016, when the song "Kupa trpljenja" appeared on YouTube. The first album, Smrti sel, followed on 20 January 2017 on the Slovenian label On Parole Productions. Slekovec wrote it alone: an instrumental intro, three songs in English and three in Slovenian, and it was the Slovenian ones, "Kupa trpljenja", "Smrti sel" and a setting of Simon Gregorčič's poem "Soči", that won over listeners and critics.

Within months Srd was playing live, with Miha Kaučič on bass, Benjamin Lazar and Dominik Flisar on guitars and drummer Timo Kosi, then only thirteen, soon replaced by Žan Ambrožič, while Slekovec took over the vocals. They played Metaldays, then Slovenia's biggest metal festival, and the English Bloodstock Open Air, by which time Luka Kutoša had taken over the bass. In May and June 2019 they toured Europe for 26 days with the Swedish band Shining, through Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland and the Netherlands, ending at Throne Fest in Belgium.

The second album, Ognja prerok, came out on 4 December 2020, with an instrumental intro and seven songs in Slovenian only, among them "Ognja prerok", "Nod", "Zev sna" and "Zlohotne zvezde pleme". With a new line-up from 2023, the third album, vragvmesiton, followed on 19 April 2024, with "Kačji mašeljn", "Mora", "Mrtvaški ples" and "Kaštiga", and the title track and "Orji" in the Prekmurje dialect; reviewers noted its long songs and a looser, rock-tinged side. Today Srd is Slekovec, Ambrožič, guitarists Matej Pok and Aleksander Trivunović, and bassist Sid Chiwele.