My first review for MetalReviews appeared in August 2002, so that makes me active with the site for almost 20 years now. I have been contemplating ending this endeavor several times, and thought 20 years may be a good time to hang it up. Besides I have no idea if anyone has been reading my musings as of late.

The last few weeks I have found it impossible for me to contribute a review because I have not been able to listen to metal music, something I loved since I was 14, or to any music for that matter. Reason - my mind has been cloudied and drifting, mired by an unshakeable personal grief … although one can claim I personally am not affected living here in the USA.

If you read my profile you probably noticed that I was born in Kiev, Ukraine, lived there until I was 16, then went to college in Moscow, Russia, for 6 years before moving to the US. This may explain why I wanted to publish this editorial and why it may be the last posting of mine on these pages. Not until I recover my center of gravity anyway.

Sure MetalReviews is not a political site and you can call me a hypocrite for not sounding my voice when many other wars have been started while I continued to be a writer for MetalReviews. All true probably, which doesn’t make coping with what happens in Ukraine these days any better. Watching the images of war always gave me a pang of unease but seeing scenes of carnage and destruction in the place where I grew up is absolutely devastating. For hours I have been sitting glued to TV, phone, internet hoping the resolution to this nightmare will come quickly, hoping obviously against hope. And then, once, I thought I recognized the picture. I stopped, slowly rewound and paused to capture it. Sure enough, in the background there was the high rise where my mom’s workplace was, with the bombed bridge in front of it where me and my sister often took a tram to school. All of this no more than 3 trolley stops from the apartment building I called home during my youth. It couldn’t get any more personal than that, but the most overwhelming feeling I had was a feeling of guilt that I left a long time ago and so many people now will be caught unable to leave, many of them paying with their lives.

The family I had left back in Kiev decided to leave the country and managed to get out. There are no more people I share my last name with left in Ukraine. One of my best high school friends, however, is still in Kiev, and I speak to him daily. Heartbreaking doesn’t come to describe what I feel hearing from him, and we continue to constantly reflect on how the country where I went to school attacked the country of our youth. Much has been stated as to how delusional ambitions of a single megalomaniac, or a narrow cadre of his cronies, is responsible, and this is not a geopolitical essay on why the Russian invasion is happening now. This is a personal reflection, and probably a futile attempt to exercise some grief. What hurts then more are the comments from (now likely former) friends my wife, who was born in Russia, has received after posting in support of Ukraine. It seems that many a mind has been infected and, sadly, quite irretrievably, if these people are able to justify the unabashed drive to annihilate and subjugate. I have long used this analogy. When you are an alcoholic, the first step on the way to recovery is to admit that you are an alcoholic. Ukraine has done that. They may not have chosen the right doctor/president, didn’t get the correct drugs prescribed to them, but they admitted they were sick and tried to get better. Russia, very much collectively, remains in denial, and thus is a long way from getting better. Sadly the country will now be thrown back a few more decades, after just having learned what some modicum of positivity is about. I do feel sorry for those whose minds will remain in the dark, but it is nothing compared to those whose brains have been blown out by indiscriminate shelling.

Pessimist in me tells me this nightmare will go on for a long time, and it will not end well. Could this have global implications? Possibly. When I felt darkness for the previous 37 years of my life, metal has been my saving elixir. Different styles fit different moods but I always managed to find the right music to soothe my soul in previous times of difficulty. I tried and I can’t right now. Apologies to those who have found my reviews interesting or useful, but I think I will be taking a long indeterminate break. It may last a week, it may last a year.

Meanwhile, please find a way to contribute to the fight for Ukraine, to help its people. Glory to Ukraine!!