‘Surrender is not an option’: Answers of the Serbian metal scene to the COVID-19 crisis

This article deals with the Serbian metal scene during the COVID-19 pandemic. To introduce the general features of this small-scale scene, a short historical overview is given, with particular attention to the challenges and opportunities the scene faced during the last decade before the pandemic. This made a good interlude into the scene’s ways of navigating the pandemic, particularly from March 2020 to the beginning of 2022. Within this timeframe, two subdivisions are noticeable: the one mainly marked by the online activity of metal musicians, and the one when live events started happening again, but with restrictions. Relying on online sources such as metal news portals, bands’ pages and profiles, and general news coverage, I will look into the concert activity, new music production and underground media coverage in order to deduce the pandemic outcome for the Serbian metal scene.