NEVER BEFORE HAS A BOY NAMED “KAREN” BEEN SO COOL

Reader Austin O’Meara recommended Russia’s Karen Grigoryan to us, suggesting that Grigoryan could be “possibly the future of the ‘djent’ genre.” I was all excited to see some hot Ruski broad getting all djenty, but as it turns out, Russians named “Karen” aren’t necessarily girls the same way Frenchies named “Michelle” aren’t necessarily girls.That’s fucking Europe for you.

Luckily, this Karen dude seems pretty talented anyway. Check out this instrumental demo:

Not too shabby, eh? The other stuff on Grigoryan’s MySpace page is pretty neat, too. Unfortunately, the poor bastard lives in Russia, which I’m guessing means he won’t be signing with Sumerian anytime soon. Fortunately, this is the 21st century, when we don’t need to rely on tape-trading to keep abreast of what musicians who live thousands of miles from us are up to. So hopefully this Karen dude has a bright future ahead of him…

-AR