Molchat Doma

As a musical phenomenon, the Belarusian band Molchat Doma is easy enough to understand—just dance to their sad songs, and you’ll get it—but harder to explain. How is it even possible to unite in a single artistic concept such disparate elements as the raw monumentalism of the communist era, the post-punk sounds of the 1980s—from Joy Division to Polish cold wave bands—and Russian lyrics about absence? And yet, as the critically acclaimed albums Этажи and Monument, released on the U.S. label Sacred Bones, as well as the band’s famously hypnotic concerts prove, it can be done, and done well at that. Even if the pandemic momentarily delayed Molchat Doma’s triumphal march across the world’s stages, this is a force that just can’t be stopped.