Rock Monsters Romania

REVIEW BY ANA BOCMAN

Since their foundation in 1995, Last Hope has had a significant impact on not only the Bulgarian hardcore and punk scene, but the entire underground community. Last Hope have played numerous gigs and festivals at home and all over Europe – they’ve toured and been to places that only few have been: taking off from their local dominant Balkan areas, through the regular Western Euro destinations.

There might be plenty of bands mining the same well-worn seam, but it takes genuine artistic inspiration to forge something different out of the same old raw materials. Now comes ‘Peacemaker,’ a magnificent record that continues this most cherished of transformations and is far superior than anything done previously, despite the fact that the groundwork has already been laid for the past 20 years.

And here I was, July 9th in Sofia, Bulgaria, for a spectacular performance. They were absolute precision; the punk formula with pure wit, verve and alive originality. In addition, great sound, perfect dynamics, the ‘look’ down to a tee…. people down the front seemed to love them. A dozen different t-shirts and merch on sale everything at really affordable prices, punk friendly.
But the true power of Last Hope has always been playing live, where they really blow things up. Those who hadn’t the chance to witness their live-show would never understand.

The Bulgarians were cranked-up really high. As loud as it could’ve been, the sound of the rhythm section was spot-on, note perfect, hard-hitting… Rarely does anyone take the album and turn it into a living, breathing piece of performance art, but ‘Last Hope’ have been as much artists as real anarchists.

Members:
Alex – vocals
Kosio – drums
Eddie Zaro – bass
Lyuben – guitar
Dido Peshev – guitar