Artery is Balkan metal collision, a tangle of toxicity and hope, a fragile dream between your dented steel veins, a wanton pulse, a thread of fucking sunshine that when it comes will be naked evidence of the end of rain. Artery is happening now, has always been happening, is just about to happen. Artery is even at this awful instant new life glimmering in the dirty diamondplate bowels of global corruption. Try to kill it, you can't. An impulse tiny and irresistable.

Artery is four nice boys from Bulgaria blasting a wicked fusion wherever they are blown by gusting doom. Yanko on bouzouki/guitar/vox. Huby on bass/vox. Chico on drums. Mena on guitar.

Artery is saving your pocket money for three years just to buy a guitar. Artery is how much you have to want this. The will to be. An aversion to limits. Artery is the dream of a 13 year old boy on the Black Sea coast at the moment Soviet communism goes crashboom all over eastern Europe. Yanko writes songs, meets Huby and Mena in school, meets Chico in the army. Artery is soon playing up and down Bulgaria, booking success but straining the seams of possibility.

Artery is the intense urge to break out, a sudden move to Prague, days as lonely foreigners. In three months Artery is busy performing and recording again. Good things happen in Prague but it's not the final destination. Artery is burning their Bulgarian passports, finding Czech citizens who look like them, and buying their Czech passports. It's easier to travel that way. But to get further west they still need the obligatory invitation. Side plot: a Dutchman named Marc is stranded hitchhiking on a rainy roadside in Germany. Nobody will stop for him. Hope fades. But then a truckdriver rescues him, gives him shelter and a hot meal. How can he ever thank the guy? Just be good to somebody else someday, the trucker advises. Years later, a friend from Prague asks Marc to write an invitation for some Bulgarian musicians to tour Amsterdam. He obliges, and stumbles into a long friendship.

Artery is visiting Amsterdam on a ten-day tourist visa, and forgetting to go home. More days as lonely foreigners, but now in the mad dazzling "West" with its drugs, women and rain. Playing for coins on bridges. First gig at the Tara. Eight months in a squat on Bilderdijkstraat.

Artery is getting busted for a bongo violation. Turns out it's forbidden to play bongos in Vondelpark, the rich might complain. So Huby is arrested, held five days and prepped for deportation as an illegal. Artery is finding lawyers, the long odyssey of proving who you are and why you should be here now. Three years pass until the Dutch justice department rules that because of their rare convolution of metal and Balkan folk influence, Artery is good for the Kingdom. Artery is granted a residence permit as long as they keep playing that weird Balkan metal. So there: Artery is, because it must be; the government says so.

Artery is now still evolving, exploring new sounds, playing new venues in new cities and recording new material. Artery is coming soon to a tender impressionable mind near you.

History

Artery was born in the summer of '89 on the Black Sea Coast of Bulgaria by close friends Yanko, Huby and Chico. Continuing all the way through to '97 Artery played all over the country at all the venues and big/small festivals, and even had hundreds of appearances on TV, radio and in magazines.

In Spring '97 the boys moved to Prague and started to play small acoustic shows with a Greek Bouzouki. This fast gained popularity and moved on to the bigger venues keen to experience with new styles, combining Balkan, Bulgarian and Greek rhythms with the aggression and passion of their favourite Western, Heavy Metal and Hard Core music.

After two years of touring the Czech Republic the band decided to move to the Netherlands. Up to this point Artery had already recorded three albums.

In Amsterdam they met Australian Rock/Pop singer Kate Fleming, and with her created, performed and recorded the album 'Valley of the Sunflowers.' After two short years Kate left the band, but not without leaving lasting memories, both in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, of the great mix of East European and Australian music. So great was this combination that Artery went on to reach the semi finals of the 'Big Prize of the Netherlands' (De Groote Prijs van Nederland) in 1999.
When Kate left in 2000 her place was filled by a young American guitar player Clyde Shory, at which point the band started to revert to their metal roots.

With Clyde they recorded 'Balkan Underground', popular all over the world!!
In '01 Filip Flusser, from the Metal band 'Luca Brasi', joined them to record the Maxi Single 'Artery' and the album 'Newtopia'. This album was released by Artery's own record label ARTERIA RECORDS. This release was followed up by shooting a video of the song 'Control' which was NUMBER 1 on Bulgarian music channel 'MM' for many weeks.

'02/'03 were busy year for the band, travelling, recording and performing all over, including a full 25 city tour in France with French Metal band 'Def Daf' from Orleans. Others include Czech Trutnov Fest (2002) 15,000 people; Dutch Uilen Pop (2003); Melkweg and Paradiso, plus other venues (Amsterdam). Belgium and Germany also feature on the list of places played.

In April '03 the boys went to the US for a show in Cagein LA in the world famous 'Roxy'. Shavo from S.O.A.D., Monkey of Korn, Logan Mader, Machine Head and Soulfly were at the show and they all loved it. They invited Clyde to join them for a project called 'KCUF' at the Indigo Ranch Studio, CA (USA).

At the end of 2003 Clyde left Artery to join the new band of Logan 'The New Black', this left Artery with the need for a new guitar player which was taken by Mena, the brother of bass player Huby.