Hangover in Minsk, the side project of the members of Dymna Lotva, fascinated me from the very first listen. I won’t lie – I’ve always been drawn to depressive and post–black metal, and when I heard that the project featured guests such as Déhà [Imber Luminis, Acathexis, ex-Ter Ziele, and many others], and Kim Carlsson [Ritualmord, A Symphony to the Void, KALL, ex-Lifelover], I knew this was something I’d be listening to for a long time. And I was right. With Hangover in Minsk coming to QFest [4 October 2025], in Bucharest, Romania, more precisely in Quantic, shortly after I reviewed their album, and performing alongside Ste Ge [Kistvaen, Apa Sîmbetii], I couldn’t miss the chance to sit down with vocalist Nokt Aeon. What came out of that conversation – you can read below.
Nokt Aeon from Hangover in Minsk performing at Quantic, 4 October 2025
© Florin Diaconescu
Hi, and thank you very much for speaking with me. To start, for readers who may not yet know, Hangover in Minsk was founded in the wake of the Dark Easter Metal Meeting 2024 festival. The project first appeared as a string of jokes about “depressive beer metal” during a twelve-hour drive from Munich, Germany, to Warsaw, Poland. Can you tell us a bit more about how that unusual beginning shaped the band’s identity?
Nokt Aeon: Oh, it was quite a story! Our drummer, Wojciech, was sleeping, and his girlfriend, who’s also our tour driver, manager, and stage tech, was driving. He was sitting next to her, sleeping. The rest of us were in the van, half alive. Honestly, you’ve probably seen our “Hangover Endorser” T-shirts. The band started from that idea.
Mikita said something like, “We all have a hangover – I want to be a Gibson endorser”. And we told him, “No, dear, you can only be a hangover endorser”. Then we realised, “That would make a great T-shirt!” But it didn’t fit Dymna Lotva’s concept at all. Still, we needed those T-shirts.
So we started joking – thinking what kind of band could suit such a T-shirt. We thought it was all just for fun, but when we got home, Jaŭhien started writing music for it. And now we’ve brought the “Hangover Endorser” T-shirts to Romania. We still love them.
Oh, that’s a premiere for the entire audience.
Nokt Aeon: Yes. And… honestly, back then, we couldn’t agree on what to listen to. One person suggested one band, another suggested another – we just couldn’t agree. So we said, “Fine, we’ll make our own music for hangover!” After our album release, I think maybe only “Morning Mourning” is good for an actual morning – because the rest is for partying, not hangovering.
Maybe the next album will be for a real hangover.
We’ll keep trying – maybe after several albums we’ll finally make one that suits a real hangover. We’ll try, we’ll drink, and we’ll try. Hopefully we’ll stay healthy enough to finish it.
You need to! [laughs]. But, still clinging to your debut album, released this year, I am having some more questions. It moved me when I first heard it, and it still does. Let us start at the beginning. “Farewell” opens the record with a subdued, almost skeletal approach. What were you aiming to express with this track, and how did you decide on its restrained emotional register?
Nokt Aeon: Honestly, the first idea was a “farewell to drinking”. Some of us tried to stop drinking, but the song turned out too beautiful to waste on a silly topic like beer. So I wrote serious lyrics.
We have farewells for so many people – loved ones, friends, colleagues. When we emigrated, it was also a farewell to our homeland, our relatives, our past. Sometimes it’s even a farewell to ourselves, when we realise we’ve changed.
Our friend made the music video. I wrote a technical script for him and said: “Nobody should understand who is drowning – is it yourself? Your friend? Have you killed someone? Yourself? It’s about everything.” Everyone who watches it should ask themselves: “Who is drowning? What is it? Maybe it’s just beer. I don’t know.”
Oh, this is truly intriguing! And I bet there is another interesting story about “Drunk and Beautiful”. “Drunk and Beautiful” feels exposed, almost self-questioning, with lines that hang unanswered. How did you approach the portrayal of vulnerability and addiction in this song without it feeling performative?
Nokt Aeon: Oh, good question. One word: memories. Memories of when I was younger, when I was a stupid girl.
When I was younger, I fell in love, like, one second, with some beautiful, depressive suicidal, decadent guy. I had several situations like this. I was in love, but I was not beautiful enough, not good enough for such process. We were just friends. And it wasn’t only one person, as I have said before. Several persons.
“Drunk and Beautiful” isn’t about a single person who’s both drunk and beautiful – it’s about one who’s drunk, and another who’s drunk and beautiful.
And it is touching, like, for real.
Nokt Aeon: It’s sad, it’s about young life for a lot of people, I think. I’m not so unique for such situations. I see a lot of people around me going through this. When you’re older, you can think, “Oh, you don’t like me, go to hell.” Or, you can say, “You don’t like me, I will find anybody else. We can just be friends”. But when you’re about 18 years old, and you are emotional, it’s hard.
I think a lot of Hangover in Minsk songs from the first album, lyrically, are about, for example, me when I was 18. Even “Fuck You, My Love”. “Fuck You, My Love” is about alcohol, but also about addiction of any kind. It’s about any addiction. It could be personal addiction, it could be alcohol addiction. I never had a drug addiction, because I know that I could get addiction very quickly, so I tried not to try drugs. But understand that I had gaming addiction sometimes. The song is about when you’re trying to break it, but you love it, but you hate it, but you love it. It could be a personal thing or anything. People can be addicted to anything, I think.
Oh, that’s so true. I’d love to dive deeper into that, but since time is short, let’s move to the tip-tap-toe of “The Cow Was Stolen from the Bar (Again)”. How did you manage to make the absurd simultaneously funny and unsettling?
Nokt Aeon: Oh, another good question. It should be funny, but sometimes it’s not.
The story’s true – there was a bar near our rehearsal studio where we spent a lot of time. One night, some very drunk guys stole a life-sized cow statue from near the toilet. It was hilarious watching the security chase them. I remember saying, “One day, it should be us.”
Now we can’t go back and do it – so it’s funny, but also not. The cow’s still in Minsk. It’s orange now – it used to be black and white. Someone broke it about ten years ago, they repaired it, painted it orange as a temporary fix… and it’s still orange.
Oh, my! And what about “Morning Mourning”? There must be a story behind the song!
Nokt Aeon: It describes a typical situation. I live with our two guitarists. Sometimes I just need to be alone – the only time I can do that is when they’re asleep after drinking. So, I sit in the kitchen in the morning, and when one of them wakes up for water and asks, “What are you doing here?” I say, “Please, don’t touch me.”
That’s where “Morning Mourning” came from – wanting a bit of personal space. The name itself isn’t new; I’ve said it for years. I’m a night person – every morning is a bad morning for me.
There’s also that line, “If I won’t wake up, forgive me”.
Nokt Aeon: That’s real. If I go to sleep after drinking all night, I’ll sleep fourteen hours straight. So if I need to do something, I have to do it before I sleep – otherwise it’s too late.
Oh, got you. Now, about the video for “Party Is Over” – it’s the album closer, and the visuals were striking. What was it like to shoot it?
Nokt Aeon: All the drinks in the video were real. We filmed for fourteen hours in our friend’s bar, not far from home. He’s a depressive/suicidal black metal fan – and a great person. He even made a cocktail named “Dymna Lotva” – it’s not on the menu, but you can ask for it. It’s long and strong, with tequila.
He opened the bar for us right after his wedding – without sleeping – and even acted in the video. We didn’t expect such a big production; our filmmaker friend brought a full crew and professional equipment.
Funny story: we met that filmmaker at the same bar three years ago. He just asked us for a lighter. Now he’s made two music videos for us.
Beautiful coincidence. And now, you came here, as Hangover in Minsk, although you are about to perform as Dymna Lotva tonight as well. How does it feel to be back in Quantic?
Nokt Aeon: Great. I was a bit nervous about not having enough energy for a second show, but it was a normal Hangover gig – beer everywhere, dancing, fun. I am just hoping I can do it again, and that the guys can do that, too. But… they always can. So no worries.
When you’re on stage, you’re not just singing – you’re feeling the music. It feels natural, not forced.
Nokt Aeon: Oh, you said the magic words – “feeling the music”. I just feel it. I love it. Every song is personal. I can’t do it any other way.
Now that we’ve moved from Belarus, we have so many opportunities. We’d be fools not to give everything on stage. It’s not about asking people to love us – it’s about expressing ourselves.
Some people say it’s performance, but honestly, my daily life feels more like acting – at my IT job, in meetings, pretending to care. That’s the performance. On stage, we’re ourselves.
Hangover in Minsk isn’t a separate persona – it’s another side of us. Everyone has at least two sides. People who don’t probably have trouble understanding themselves.
Nokt Aeon from Hangover in Minsk, and Ste Ge, from Kistvaen, and Apa Sîmbetii, performing at Quantic, 4 October 2025
© Florin Diaconescu
Got you. And tonight, you also collaborated with another artist – Ste Ge, from Kistvaen, and Apa Sîmbetii. How was the chemistry?
Nokt Aeon: Perfect. His voice was amazing – I didn’t expect such great clean vocals. We’d love to perform with him again. He even brought beer on stage!
He asked if we’d play a song we’d written seven years ago with guest vocals from Graf of Psychonaut 4. We said no at first – it was meant as a one-time thing – but now, maybe next time. And – fucking Facebook – I spent forever searching for our old conversation about it! In the end I just went to Metal Archives, looked up all the Romanian depressive bands, and found him that way.
Oh my! Glad that the collaboration was fruitful. See you next time, Nokt!
Nokt Aeon: See you, thank you very much for your time and the interest in us!
Nokt Aeon from Hangover in Minsk performing at Quantic, 4 October 2025
© Florin Diaconescu
