Most people first met Jinjer through the live “Pisces” performance video that went viral around 2017. The clip everyone shared was the moment Tatiana Shmayluk drops out of clean singing and into a death growl mid-line. The part worth rewatching is what is happening underneath her voice.
Jinjer is a Ukrainian progressive groove metal band founded in 2009 in Donetsk, blending djent rhythms, jazz-influenced bass, hardcore breakdowns and clean-to-growl vocal phrasing into something the genre had not quite heard before. The longer story is why the band, not just the voice, is worth the deep dive.
Roman Ibramkhalilov on guitar plays in a register most groove bands ignore. Lots of mid-range melodic chord voicings under the breakdowns. Eugene Abdukhanov on bass is the part players keep coming back to: jazz and funk lines inside what is technically a metalcore song, and somehow it never sounds like fusion-tourism. Vladislav Ulasevich on drums holds it all together with footwork that stays musical even at speed. The rhythm section is the reason the genre-jumps land. Tatiana switches voices because they have built her a song that can carry the switch.
From Donetsk to the world
The band formed in Donetsk in 2009, a coal city in eastern Ukraine. The 2014 conflict in Donbas displaced them. They kept writing. Cloud Factory came in 2014, King of Everything on Napalm Records in 2016, Macro in 2019, and Wallflowers in 2021. Duél followed on Napalm in February 2025, their fifth studio album and the first since the full-scale invasion. Each record sharpened the same idea. Make the heavy parts groovier and the groovy parts heavier, and let Tatiana navigate between them.
When Russia launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Jinjer cancelled their spring US tour and put the band on hold to focus on relief work. Their charity T-shirts raised more than $140,000 within weeks, with all proceeds going to charities in Ukraine chosen by the band. In June 2022 they received permission from Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture to leave the country and tour as its ambassadors. The sound is still recognisably Jinjer. The context around it has changed everything.
Why now
Most metal fans know Jinjer through one or two viral clips. That is a shame. The deeper catalogue is where the band lives. Put on Macro with headphones and listen to what Eugene is doing in the rhythm section. Then go back to the viral clip. You will understand what was holding it up.
If it is the story of the voice on top you want, the piano upbringing, the pillow screaming, where Tatiana Shmayluk comes from, that one has its own write-up: Tatiana Shmayluk: The Ginger in Jinjer.
