This week, Balkan Express will disect a member of the Vermes family, a distinctly bilateral specimen of a Serbian alt-rock band that goes by the name of Crvi or… Worms.

Crvi are an alt-rock band from Serbian capital Belgrade. They've been around since 2014 but like actual worms, they keep separating, splitting laterally and re-forming into a better version of themselves. They are, to use their own words, a band constantly in the making.

Crvi are not a super-group. Rather, they are an outlet for members of many other bands, who need to explore themselves outside of their primary band's artistic expression. Which is also why it takes them an unreasonably long time to come up with new material.

The band released their first album in 2017, three years after they came about. Titled »Piše nam se dobro« / We're in for a good time, it was a tour-de-force of alternative rock with deliberate inconsistencies and imperfections. Like life itself.

Two years later, in 2019, Crvi released their second album. Titled Šta si uradio / What did you do, it was a more nuanced and complex undertaking, which also reflected the groups slightly altered lineup.

As things stand now, Crvi are Damjan Babić on guitar and vocals, Dimitrije Đurić on bass and vocals and Andrej Mladenović on drums. But the lineup can amend or change, changing the band's poetics along the way.

Crvi are not your usual fare of Balkan alt-rock. Too peculiar to be mainstream and yet not in-your-face shockingly different, they stand appart by leaps they make with every album and every single they release. And by the fact that one album, while connected to its predecessor is distinct in every way, shape or form.

And that's all the time we have for today. Check out Crvi on YouTube, Spotify and wherever you get your music from and Balkan Express will be back next week.