Track By Tracks: Marko Bojkovic - Powercore (2024)

1. Anesthesia (No Easy Way Out):

For the longest time, I’ve wanted a career in healthcare. I thought about giving up, but I had an awakening last November. I’m into medicine for a reason, and I’d hate to throw away the knowledge that I accumulated over the years! This song sets the musical tone for the album, showcasing the progressive metal, power metal, and metalcore sides of the album.

The song begins with a clean lo-fi guitar track that was influenced by Polyphia and Everything//Nothing by Termina and goes into a heavy C Lydian riff with the use of a whammy pedal and Gojira scrapes, displaying the progressive side of the music. The verse riffs showcase the power metal side of the music by being harmonized during the second time that they’re played; the vocals over them showcase the metal core side of the album, as does the chorus (which consists of arpeggios that were influenced by Secret Garden by Spiritbox).

This song also has the happiest breakdown in the history of breakdowns. Goal achieved! Haha

2. From Within:

A lot of people have told me that I inspired them over the years. They inspired me too, and this song reflects their inspiration. We all have the power within us to inspire others to achieve their goals, and the best part is no training is required to achieve it. We all have it, including you!

This is the most powerful metal song on this album, and its second guitar solo is currently my favorite guitar solo that I have ever written! The singer in this song, Gabe Vermund, took a liberty with the third pre-chorus, and I totally approve of it!

3. Sacrifice for Sanity:

My parents run a very successful virtual company. However, it hasn’t been easy trying to maintain it due to all the hardships that they had to overcome. Sometimes I feel they wonder if it’s even worth going through even more trouble just to maintain their successful lives. That said, when you listen to this song, try to reflect on where you are in life. Are you happy where you are now? Do you want a better life for yourself? You have to deal with a lot of hardships to live a “better” life. Are you, the listener, ready to go through them?

This is the most progressive song on the album; the only part that’s in 4/4 is when the chords ring out before the first verse riff, which is my favorite riff that I ever wrote! What makes that riff stand out aside from being in 10/8 time is that it is in the 7th mode of the harmonic minor scale, which is quite an anomaly! Fun fact: the djent breakdown is actually harmonized! I proved in this song that djent can be harmonic!

4. What We Accomplished:

I was in a very rough place last year, but I was blessed with an amazing group of friends who were there for me and helped me overcome it! I wouldn’t be here if it weren't for them, so I wrote this song to thank them. Although I couldn’t continue with them in school, we strengthened our friendship during my rough experience. You are in a great spot today because of your friends, so give them a huge thanks for helping you get there!

This song may be the most radio-friendly progressive metal/power metal/metalcore song in the world, which displays the flexibility of powercore!

5. Find Your Flame:

This is a cover of the song that plays in the video game Sonic Frontiers when you fight the Titan named Knight. Of all the Titans’ themes, Find Your Flame is my favorite because of how hard the riffs that accompany the rapping go! It also has an otherworldly guitar solo that you swear Synyster Gates or Jason Richardson would play! When I first heard this song, I had to learn it immediately, so I did. I realized that on my cover of this song on YouTube, I actually played it wrong, but when I posted it there weren’t too many covers so I had to learn it as best as I could. I relearned it for this album and of course, threw my little touches on the riffs. This is officially my favorite song from the Sonic the Hedgehog series, and I can’t say how much I love it!

6. Thrown:

This song is different from the other ones because, while I poured my happiness into them, I also poured my anger and sadness into this one. I lost my best friend due to a manipulator, and he didn’t once think the lies through. He immediately jumped to a conclusion. It really hurt given that we were inseparable during our time as friends, not to mention I was always there for him when he was going through rough times (I won’t dive into those details). Our friendship ending turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as this song happens to be my favorite song on the album.

The second solo starts with a tritone scale run followed by diminished arpeggios .In other words, I snuck in influence from jazz fusion and classical music too!

7. To Reminisce:

The most metalcore song on this album, I originally wrote it for Spiritual Chaos. I left the band in the Summer of 2023, but I didn’t want this song to be lost forever. It’s a great song and it has one of my favorite choruses (I like to write choruses that are arpeggiated). I re-wrote the solo earlier this year, and now it has a much better flow. If this song had been released while I was in Spiritual Chaos, it would’ve likely been our best song. I’m very happy I was able to put it to use here!