Strong voice and airy lungs… Three lives are not enough… To sing of all the wonders I’ve seen!

Slava Ukraini! As the temperatures are rising in this month of July, there’s nothing better than celebrating the summer heat with the ass-kicking heavy music crafted by our metal lady of the month here on The Headbanging Moose. The name Olha Ihorivna Bohdanova, or Ольга Ігорівна Богданова in her mother tongue, might not mean much to you, but once you associate it with Helle Bohdanova (or Helle Bogdanova), the unstoppable frontwoman for Ukrainian Melodic/Progressive Metal band Ignea, then all will make a lot more sense to you and you’ll start headbanging like a true metalmaniac to the sound of her incredible vocals. There’s no escape from her hypnotizing voice, but I’m sure that’s exactly what you want, as you dive deep into her realm of heaviness, melody and endless fire. Because there will most definitely be fire, no doubt about that, which means you better get ready to be burned alive while Helle penetrates deep inside your mind with her flammable vocals.

Born on October 22, 1991 in Kyiv, the capital and most populous city of Ukraine, Helle is a vinyl lover, a dark style enthusiast, and a proud Kyivan who’s been making a name for herself as the voice of Ignea, blending Melodic, Symphonic and Progressive Metal with Middle-Eastern Folk influences for a unique sonic experience for any fan of good music. It was back in 2011 when keyboardist Evgeny Zhytnyuk and guitarist Dmitry Volovnenko formed the band that would later become Ignea, Progressive Metal band Parallax, as the first Ukrainian band to play what they would label as “Oriental Metal”, singing about topics such as life on Mars, Sputnik-1, war, The John Carter movie, and the Pioneer One series. In 2012, the band was joined by bassist Xander Kamyshin, guitarist Max Khmelevsky and our ruthless vocalist Helle Bohdanova, and started rehearsals. Dmitry decided to pursue his life and career interests outside Parallax and left the band, and in 2013 the band released their debut EP, titled Sputnik, followed by a 2014 single named Petrichor.

The band then announced their name change to Ignea on November 22, 2015, already releasing a new single named Alga (named after a war call of Crimean Tatar people who were defending their land) less than a week later. Playing a mix of heavy riffs with symphonic, electronic and folk elements, and of course strong story-telling, therefore creating a powerful OST-like experience while staying true to the melodic essence of their music, the band then released a rebranded version of their EP Sputnik back in 2016, followed by their 2017 first full-length opus The Sign of Faith (showcasing a heavier sound, both clean and extreme vocals, and authentic Middle-Eastern melodies), their 2020 sophomore effort The Realms of Fire and Death (a concept album with powerful story-telling, metaphors, and symbols, accompanied by a book of short tales incorporating the lyrics of each song), the 2021 split EP Bestia (a concept EP about the human nature of Slavic mythological creatures and the world’s duality) alongside Ukrainian Symphonic Metal band Ersedu, and more recently the 2023 album Dreams of Lands Unseen (a concept album that reflects the life of Ukrainian photographer and documentarian Sofia Yablonska, known for traveling to very distant corners of the world while documenting the lives of tribes and natives, which was especially dangerous and uncommon for a woman of her time), which had its release date postponed to 2023 because of the Russia-Ukraine full-scale war. Also, don’t forget to check the band’s official videos for the songs Jinnslammer, Queen Dies, Seytanu Akbar,  Nomad’s Luck, Dunes, and many more on their official YouTube channel, including live performances of some of their best creations.

The high quality of their music not only led them to tour across several countries, including Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Czech Republic, France, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, and of course, Ukraine, but The Realms of Fire and Death was also selected as the metal album of the year and the band as the best Ukrainian metal band of 2020, according to the Ukrainian national awards named The Best Ukrainian Metal Act. Also, despite the Russia-Ukraine war, the band managed to play multiple charity shows in Ukraine, and embark on an Europe and UK tour with Industrial Metal legends Fear Factory, playing 43 shows within a span of only two months. Needless to say, you should definitely buy and/or stream their entire discography on BandCamp or on Spotify for a very good time alongside Helle and the boys.

Currently formed of our beloved Helle Bohdanova on vocals alongside Dmytro Vinnichenko on the guitars, Oleksandr Kamyshin on bass, Yevhenii Zhytniuk on keyboards, and Ivan Kholmohorov on drums, the band proudly serves as cultural ambassadors for Ukraine, diligently raising awareness about the country’s ongoing situation among their international fanbase, as well as solidifying their status with appearances in several major European festivals including Wacken Open Air, Summer Breeze, Bloodstock, and Leyendas del Rock. Not only that, nine songs by Ignea have been featured in the highly anticipated video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, a collaboration that brings the Ukrainian band’s powerful and atmospheric music to the immersive post-apocalyptic world of the game, enhancing its dark and gritty ambiance.

One curious fact about Helle and her contribution to the success of Ignea was her adventure through Faroese lands with their cover version of Í Tokuni, featured on their 2020 album The Realms of Fire and Death, and originally released by Syðrugøta, Faroe Islands-based Nordic Folk Rock/Pop artist  Eivør in her 2015 album Slør (check the original version HERE). Helle was learning Norwegian when it was time to record her vocals, and her experience ended up being weird as the song’s language, Faroese, is close but not that much to Norwegian. “I’m learning Norwegian indeed, and it actually didn’t help, even made it worse. Because lots of words are similar in written form but they’re pronounced absolutely differently, so I had to force myself to get away from Norwegian. But I enjoyed singing it so much, it’s almost like a mantra for me. And there’s also some kind of throat extreme vocals which I’ve never done before and it came out naturally for me from the first take. It’s like I’ve always done that.”

Apart from her already solid career with Ignea, Helle can also be found as a guest vocalist for Brazilian/Polish Symphonic Death Metal band Itself, singing in the song Voices of the Unheard, from their 2023 album The Absence, and in the song Untimeliness, from the 2024 album Shadow Empress, by German Progressive Metal project Nino Helfrich. Unfortunately for now those are the only two songs featuring Helle as a guest musician, but I’m sure we’ll see a lot more of her alongside some of the biggest names of the underground as well as mainstream artists in the near future, as her voice is fantastic and deserves to be featured in an array of songs and albums from all types of music, not only heavy music.

Regarding her idols, interests and influences, Helle mentioned already that she has been interested in mythology since her very early childhood, resulting in for example mentions of the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, the Japanese goddess Fuji, the Norwegian god Logi and the Slavic god Svarog in the excellent song Gods Of Fire. “For me, it’s more about the vibe and different worlds, not about science or history. In my belief, each person has its god/gods, just like each country has a president or monarchy. I cannot explain that, but so far, this is how I see it. If I could, I would include much more gods in the song but it would be too long!” Another one of her idols is travel photographer and reporter Sofia Yablonska, with their album Dreams of Lands Unseen revolving around her life and philosophy. “I think the most amazing thing is that she felt very contemporary to me. We’re nearly a century apart and yet, her philosophy and thoughts are very modern and applicable for today. She was definitely ahead of her time in all aspects. Moreover, she always took her life in her hands and overcame all the obstacles she faced, no matter what dangers and discomforts appeared,” commented Helle.

It was back in 2023 when Helle, after winning Best Vocals, received 36% of the votes in the category Best Brutal Vocals and won another award for Ignea at the very competitive and fun FemMetal Awards that year, adding to the band’s previously won awards for Best Metal Act, Best Music Video, and Best Album. Just to give you an idea of how competitive the Best Brutal Vocals category was that year, the other nominees were Carla Harvey (Butcher Babies), Fernanda Lira (Crypta), Liv Jagrell (Liv Sin), Obscura (Asagraum), Prika Amaral (Nervosa), and Sofia Frasz (Exiled Hope), all phenomenal vocalists from excellent bands of the current metal scene worldwide who I’m sure you’ve already heard of, and who keep making the world of heavy music a much better place when they take the global stages by storm.

Helle was also asked in one of her interviews about her thoughts on playing live with an orchestra, to which she replied that although it’s a beautiful idea, it’s at the same time very hard and expensive to bring together 40 or more people on tour. “Even huge bands are sometimes not able to play with an orchestra,” said Hellen. Having been touring internationally since 2018, Hellen said she believes it’s very positive to tour with bands that have quite a different audience, helping them in gaining more new fans on tour. “I think some bands we’d like to tour with someday are Amorphis, Moonspell, Cellar Darling, Delain, and Lacuna Coil, to name a few,” commented Helle, also saying that all can change depending on their musical direction. Moreover, Ignea toured with Fear Factory, Butcher Babies, and Ghosts of Atlantis not too long ago, saying it was a huge honor for them to join that amazing lineup, proving how dynamic their music can be, as well as a three-week tour across nine countries within the Female Metal Voices Tour 2018 headlined by Butcher Babies and Kobra and the Lotus.

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In their 2020 album The Realms of Fire and Death, Helle recorded the song Чорне Полум’я in their native language Ukrainian for the first time ever in the band’s history (although the band had been playing it live together with Queen Dies since 2018). “To be honest, I’m a global citizen and I’m not that connected to certain geographic location. This planet is my home and I feel good on the road. Singing in Ukrainian seemed very suitable for this particular song, and I’m glad we did it. It was also perceived very well by our listeners, so maybe we’ll do such experiments in the future, if we feel that a certain song should be recorded in Ukrainian. It’s not an intentional thing, it comes from our inspiration,” said Helle, who also commented if the band will record more songs in Ukrainian in the future. “I think that we’ll stick to English as our primary language but we’ll definitely create more songs in Ukrainian, because sometimes you listen to the instrumentals and you just hear Ukrainian there, you know. Also, we were very pleasantly surprised that lots of our listeners are particularly waiting for this song and we’re very flattered that they want to hear Ignea music in our mother tongue.”

Having been impacted directly by the Russia-Ukraine full-scale war, Helle said that the band has been very active with informing their audience abroad about everything happening in her homeland, mentioning that there have been very difficult times for them not just as a band, but as Ukrainian citizens. “We used to share updates on Patreon but the platform approached us, just like it approached other Ukrainian creators, and forced us to remove all info about the war and stop ‘financing the war.’ We did as they said because we’ve grown a big community on Patreon and it’s the band’s main source of income at this point. All I’m saying is we sometimes feel that the world is turning its back on us, no matter what atrocities Russia commits. Interviews have become one of the few places to freely talk about it. As for predictions, we won’t do any. Everyone’s tired of this war but we’ve got no other way but win it, be it near future, or not. Occupation by Russia is the worst that can ever happen.”

By the way, Helle mentioned that there’s one Ukrainian saying that’s screamed by all artists and fans at every show in her homeland, and will certainly still be screamed at least until the war is over, which is “Слава Україні – Героям Слава!” (“Glory to Ukraine – Glory to Heroes!”). In addition, when asked which Ukrainian bands she would recommend to any metalhead across the globe, she listed the bands Hell:on (Death Metal), 1914 (Blackened Death/Doom Metal), Fleshgore (Brutal Death Metal), Pušča (Post-Black Metal), Vidmershiy Shmat (Black Metal), Angered Crowd (Death/Groove Metal), and Death Pill (Hardcore), among others, saying the Ukrainian scene has been growing in recent years with more bands, more shows, and more support to the local metal acts.

Our unstoppable diva also has a very cool view of concept albums. “I can tell that perhaps concept albums are easier to present and promote, so it can be a reason why the bands tend to do it nowadays. But what I loved most about doing the concept album is that you create a world and you’re surfing it while writing music, words… It’s more than just putting together songs that are not connected to each other. My day job is also related to texts and I’ve been writing as long as I remember myself. So, story-telling is something that captivates me and the listeners as well.” As you might have just noticed, Helle is also a writer, having already published a book of poems and often shared her creations with her supporters on Patreon. “Words were always easy for me to put together. I started reading and writing at a very early age, and, for some reason, it’s always been easier for me to write rhymed pieces, poems, or lyrics,” she said. “I’d say that whatever I’m trying to do – write music, paint, do some hand-made stuff, I’m just best with words. And maybe I should really master it more and more. As for inspiration, I get inspired most by travelling and seeing new places, new people.”

In 2021, Helle also released a podcast available on all major streaming platforms like Spotify named The Bandsment, which is about everything bands are doing to get out of the basement. These band to band talks and videos dedicated to certain aspect of music business are for independent bands who want to be more efficient in their growth and day-to-day operations, rock and metal artists who want to share their experience of running the band and cross-promote, people willing to start a band and don’t know where to begin with, and everyone who is interested in the backstage life of bands and how they function. Among the bands and artists interviewed we can find some very interesting names like Baest and Diva Satanica (Bloodhunter, Nervosa), and although there aren’t any new episodes after March 2021, the content of the thirteen episodes available are more than interesting and useful already.

In a nutshell, the indomitable Helle Bohdanova is much more than just a singer. She’s a true frontwoman, a talented, focused and very professional musician, a writer, a traveler, a businesswoman, a music lover, a proud Ukrainian, and so on (and you can get more details about all of her endeavors by clicking HERE). Just like her own moniker and the name of her band state, she will burn your soul like the fires of hell, always in the name of heavy music, and always showcasing endless passion for what she does. Helle might be one of the most precious gems of the current Ukrainian scene, and if you consider yourself a true admirer and supporter of the underground, simply go check her music and her art, as I’m sure you’ll get addicted to all of her incendiary creations.

Helle Bohdanova’s Official Facebook page
Helle Bohdanova’s Official Instagram
Helle Bohdanova’s Official YouTube channel
Ignea’s Official Facebook page
Ignea’s Official Instagram
Ignea’s Official YouTube channel