After a false start because you truly cannot work out the difference between CET and UK time when the time changes are not global, I finally caught up via Zoom with the awesome Helle Bohdanova of Ignea. Their latest album Monumental was released a couple of weeks ago, and I found it a compelling listen.
It is worth saying at the start of this that Helle and the rest of her bandmates, Evgeny Zhytnyuk, Oleksander Kamyshin and Dmitry Vinnichenko, are resident in Kyiv, still under daily bombardment from Russian forces five years into the war.
As Helle tells me during the interview, just going about daily life is a challenge, and being in a band that needs to tour Europe and beyond is incredibly hard.
I have nothing but admiration for these people.
Having released Monumental, I wonder how Helle feels about it now that it is out for the fans to listen to. “It’s really hard to describe all the feelings,” she says. “I am relieved that we managed to do it despite the conditions we’re in, and that we managed to deliver it on time with all the music videos, because we had a lot of challenges.
“At the same time, we focused on the singles, and I feel we still have so much to do to unfold the rest of the songs from the record. There is so much content still to make. So, it’s a relief, but I also feel that I haven’t said everything I wanted to say.”
Like most bands, promotion is increasingly centred on singles and videos in the run-up to the release. It can be difficult to ensure that the whole album gets the attention it deserves.
Helle agrees that it is complicated. “Visuals and storytelling are a huge part of what we do. We try to give each song as much of a spotlight as possible. Usually, the promotional phase is only three months. This time we asked for five.
“But that can work against a band, because by the fourth month people may have forgotten the first song. There is so much music being released these days. That’s why I appreciate every stream even more. I feel that people take the time to pick our music out of everything being released and give it a listen.”
I have read that the conditions that Ignea recorded Monumental were incredibly challenging.
She explains that the band are centred in Kyiv, and that apart from a couple of tours, this is where they remain. The male members of the band are unable to leave due to martial law, whilst Helle’s home is here.
Why would she go elsewhere?
“My parents are here, and the band is here. If I can live here, I want to be here. It was a huge challenge to record this album. It’s actually our second album recorded during the war, so I thought perhaps we had learned everything with the first one.
“I thought it couldn’t get worse, but it did. Russia keeps hitting our energy infrastructure, year after year. It’s impossible to rebuild everything at once because the attacks keep happening.”
I imagine Ukraine can get cold in the winter, but Helle tells me that last winter was one of the coldest in 100 years. “It was an extremely cold winter,” she says. “Sometimes we had no central heating and very long power outages. We can warm ourselves, but you can’t really do the same with musical equipment.
“That was probably our greatest challenge. Sometimes we had to heat the room for a long time, record for maybe an hour, and then another power outage meant we couldn’t continue. Everything took longer than planned, even before considering the attacks that could interrupt us at any moment.”
With curfews in place, this posed another challenge for the band, who, as Helle has already noted, do place a lot of energy into their visual work.
“Music videos are another level of challenge,” she explains. “You plan them well ahead, but you can’t plan whether there will be a massive attack that day or the night before.
“For Darkness, a very suitable name for living in our conditions, we had a massive attack on Kyiv all night long. The next day was a filming day, about 15 hours of work. We were basically driving through fires and ruins to the filming location.
“When we arrived, there was another air raid and one of the buildings next to us was hit. But the whole crew still showed up. Everyone was very sleepy, but we had a great time, and everyone was very professional.”
That was just one part of creating Monumental. Helle tells me about the extra costs and the challenges because of the military curfew, having to stop at 10pm rather than 1am, which meant two days of filming with the additional cost implications.
Although they have support from Napalm Records, it is obvious that unless you are in the eye of the storm, you just cannot appreciate the position.
“We didn’t understand it either until the war started happening to us,” she says. “No one is really pushing us over deadlines, but we are part of the industry, and no one gives us a discount for being in Ukraine. We basically compete equally, so we must be consistent with releasing our music. If we agree a release date with the label, we want to make it happen. Of course, no one would blame us or charge us for not doing it on time, but for us it makes sense to do it.”
Sometimes working to a deadline can be a help. For others, that structure is something of a curse. For Helle, she can work with a deadline, although she reminds me that in such uncertain times, it can be unpredictable.
“I prefer having a deadline, even if we might move it a little. It helps to have something planned, especially when we sometimes can’t plan anything even for tomorrow. Having a deadline and focusing on it is also a sort of escapism for us.”
One thing that Ignea are keen to ensure is that they do not write lyrics that romanticise war. She is clear that the situation has been a hinderance.
“We would have been much more productive with our music, our stage presence and everything else if the war weren’t happening.”
Helle makes it clear that their position has changed their view. “For me, music and the things we write about are more about refocusing away from the horrors of our day-to-day lives than concentrating on them.
“Personally, I don’t want to read books about war right now, even an imaginary war, or watch films about it. Even fantasy films with knights and dragons have too many similarities to real things. Historical films about the Second World War have too many similarities to what we experienced, especially in the first days, with jets above our heads, bombs and tanks.
“It felt like being in a film, because this was 2022. In our art, we don’t really try to focus on that. Of course, certain things come through in the lyrics from time to time, reflecting what we are experiencing, but not in a straightforward way.”
We move on to the forthcoming tour with Evergrey and the difficulties that Ignea (and their fellow musicians) face to prepare and leave the country.
“Every time we want to tour, we have to go through a very long procedure with the Ministry of Culture. We provide supporting documents showing that it’s a proper tour and proper work, that we are a legitimate band with a fan base, and that we are going not only to promote our work but also to talk about the situation in Ukraine.
“We do that at every show, and we also raise donations. The male members of the band also certify that they will return after the tour. It’s complicated every time. We’ve managed to make it happen over the years, although sometimes with a different line-up.
“For 70,000 Tons of Metal in the US, for example, we had to go to Poland to get our visas because we couldn’t get US visas in Kyiv. One member couldn’t go, so we travelled with a session member. We try to make it work as much as possible and hope for the best.”
It comes as no surprise that touring the UK is not easy either, as she tells me about the visa implications. “For Ukrainians, artist visas are very expensive. They aren’t very complicated to obtain, especially with a good history of entering and leaving the UK, but for us it meant a couple of thousand euros just to come for a couple of weeks.”
Despite this, she is excited to be returning to the UK.
We recall the band’s main stage performance at Bloodstock in 2024, and the fact that the band have ten dates to play in the UK, which makes it worthwhile.
“Playing Bloodstock in 2024 was one of the highlights of our career,” Helle says. “The festival was amazing, so I’m very excited to return to the UK”.
Helle doesn’t feel there is pressure to act as an ambassador for Ukraine on stage or on tour. She’s keen to emphasise that they are “absolutely sincere”.
There are no directions given, and raising donations is not a requirement.
“But we live here,” she says. “We have a lot of friends in the military who are defending us. We see everything through our day-to-day lives, not through the news. That’s why what we do is sincere.
“In 2022, we could easily post updates about the war on our socials. Later, Facebook and Instagram started blocking posts when we tried to speak about the situation. We don’t really post sensitive content, although there is a lot of it here, because we realise people don’t want to see it with their own eyes.”
For Ignea, going on tour and speaking to people backstage, at the merch table or from the stage provides a place to talk without being banned or having their reach lowered.
“Interviews are another way for us to speak out,” she says. “I never feel pressure to talk only about this. We are promoting the album first of all. But its creation was partly influenced by our conditions. The album sounds the way it does because of where and how we live.
“Without the war, perhaps we would have travelled to Jakob Hansen in Denmark to record it. But we didn’t have that chance, so we recorded it ourselves. Its sound comes not only from his mixing and mastering but also from the conditions in our studio and the instruments we had available.”
The first time I saw Ignea, they were on a package supporting Fear Factory that also included Ghosts Of Atlantis and Butcher Babies. Evergrey offers a closer fit musically than the eclectic nature of that tour.
“I feel we are the kind of band that can fit into many different tour line-ups,” Helle says. “We can lean towards the brutal side or the melodic side, depending on the album and the song. That’s also how we shape our set lists.
“With Fear Factory, we were promoting the previous album, but we chose more fast-paced, technical and energetic songs. Across 43 shows, that line-up proved that it worked for all four bands. Here, we are much closer to Evergrey, and the opening act, Stellar Circuits, also connects us.
“I think there will be an intersection between the fan bases, while each band still does its own thing. That’s the best way for everyone, because people can discover new bands. Our audience is quite open-minded because we mix so many things in our music.
“I think it will be similar to Evergrey and Stellar Circuits, because they play progressive music and combine different things too. We haven’t met them in person yet, so we’re excited to do that. I really like their last album.
“Touring with a headliner is a huge privilege. You get to see them live night after night, and, as a smaller band, you have a chance to learn from what they do.
“When we toured with Butcher Babies and Kobra and the Lotus in 2018, we could see two different approaches. Repeating stage choreography and leaving more room for improvisation. Touring is the best thing that can happen to musicians, and the more diversity there is from tour to tour, the better, in my opinion.”
Although touring does provide respite from the domestic situation, it still takes a toll on the band. Helle explains the questions it raises.
“Sometimes when you’re touring and living what you might call a normal life, you start questioning this world a lot. Being far from home can be harder than sitting here during an air raid. You read that something has happened in your home city, and you don’t know whether it’s your apartment, your studio or somewhere else. You’re far away and can’t check, so you feel more anxious.”
At this point, Helle explains that air raid sirens are sounding in Kyiv as we speak.
“It’s pretty much all the time here in Kyiv now.”
Having checked all is well, we move onto the final questions and explore the position with the drummer in the band. “We haven’t really had a permanent drummer since last year,” She says. “We mutually parted ways, with no hard feelings. It happened naturally. We aren’t a band that changes its line-up all the time. Because we’re in Ukraine and most of our tours happen abroad, it’s very difficult to find a permanent drummer.
“Ukraine drummers face complications crossing the border, while foreign drummers don’t want to come here to work with us and film videos.
“We have a couple of friends who are session drummers in Poland, and we play shows abroad together depending on their availability. For this tour, we’ll have Pawel (Jaroszewicz) from Poland, who has played with so many bands that he can barely recall them all. We have a real connection together.
“If it weren’t for the war, perhaps we would invite him to become our permanent drummer, but it is what it is. This is how we operate these days, and I think it works.”
It has been a long day for Helle. Interviews have been plentiful, and we part with best wishes and a promise to send a photo of her on stage at Bloodstock two years ago.
Ignea will move heaven and earth to tour the UK with Evergrey in November and December. Get along if you can, buy some merch or donate. They deserve it.
Ignea released Monumental on 23 October via Napalm Records. You can read our review of this bold, beautiful and brilliantly unpredictable album here. More details can be found at lnk.to/Ignea-Monumental/napalmrecords. Ignea are on tour with Evergrey on their Architects Of A New Weave European Tour 2026 along with Stellar Circuits.
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