Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Sausages
Label: Self-released
Release: 2013
Running time: 50:11
Rating: 4/5
Twenty years of Sausages, and finally a new record! At long last, even if it’s only their fourth. After an eleven-year break. And yet. Here it is. Why things didn’t go differently, only the band knows, nobody else. And yet. The guys who broke through the ice of the Slovenian mainstream in the first half of the nineties are gentlemen now, but it still boils in their veins under the skin. They’re still proper rock troublemakers! They say the biggest punks make the best rock n’ roll. »3,4,5, – Dej pel« is definitely a calling card that proves the saying right for Sausages! With this album Sausages remain a quintet that’s hard to match in Slovenia when you’re after the most authentic garage-flavored rock n’ roll burn, drenched in erotic blues sauce! This is an album that grabs you instantly and doesn’t let go until Sausages fire off the last note on it.
Despite the wide gaps between releases of new material, »3,4,5, – Dej pel« makes it clear that the guys haven’t budged an inch creatively. Not left, not right. What they’ve come up with is a new, full-blooded rock n’ roll album. The opener Dej pel quickly makes it obvious that between the hit To mi deli and the character of the new album’s songs, nothing has really changed.
The band, with Goran Breščanski on vocals, plays better and better. Year after year. And that’s honestly poured into the studio and onto the new album. It has excellent production that’s almost literally “live” in its lively kick. Breščanski’s vocals have gotten even more badass. Exactly what he’s always brought to Sausages. A piercing guy full of vocal arrogance and swagger, who’s simply turned over the years into yet another naughty uncle. So the band made up for the long drought, when there was no new material in sight, with regular gigging. And with activity in other projects, like Iron Median and Hamo & Tribute 2 Love. Sausages walked into the studio decidedly sharpened and armed with a surplus of adrenaline rush and an erect posture that sustains the incredible potency of the rock n’ roll playing on »3,4,5 – Dej pel«. I won’t be exaggerating if I say right away that the design of the band’s logo fully justifies their inspiration from The Rolling Stones, both the figures and the work. Caught in the playing on the new Sausages album is the extraordinary core of rock n’ roll potency, dictated by the genuine nature of guitar playing steeped in blues cues. The solos are fantastic, the phrasing varied and defined (each song has its own crafted character), and the Frangeš / Čulajevič duo works with remarkable chemistry.
Breščanski is flirting again and luring the girls into original sin, it’s in his blood and it fully ignites in the musical language the band cultivates. The songs are locked onto one single frequency, called the genuine Sausages frequency. Twelve songs, one hidden, so thirteen in total, generate a powerful run of events in an otherwise predictable rock n’ roll vein, because everything in this genre was said long ago. But in Sausages’ hands, the caught-in-the-act density of rock n’ roll’s elementals works wonderfully once again in all its authenticity and sincerity. And that’s enough. Eleven years is a long time. The band polished the songs to the max, the album is full of ideas, and compositionally it doesn’t falter for a single second of its entire running time.
There’s just one flaw, and it really bugs me, though it has nothing to do with the music. The underside of the disc shows that Sausages used the cheapest CD-Rs, meant for the private “burning” of countless households on this planet. So the underside of the CD is green rather than silver, as it should be. Cheap, you could even say too cheap for a band of Sausages’ caliber.
»3,4,5 – Dej pel« is a superb comeback album from the band. It kept the essence of the band’s character and work, established by its three previous releases. What’s more. It deepened and widened the expressive power of the band’s embodied rock n’ roll culture and redefined their charisma with maturity, showing a thorough upgrade in the actual performance of the material on »3,4,5, – Dej pel«! Let’s hope Sausages get their next album together at least a year or so sooner, so we don’t accidentally end up with a release date of 2024!
Lineup
Goran Breščanski – vocals
Marko Čulajevič – guitar
Helmut Frangeš – guitar
Bernard Pajk – bass guitar
Martin Janežič – drums, percussion
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Primož Romšak – vocals
Jakob Krall “Jacuzzy” – backing vocals, vocals
Grega Skočir – backing vocals
Sergej Škofljanec – backing vocals
Mate Brodar – backing vocals
Marko Paunovič – guitar
Zoran Čalič “Zoki” – guitar
Blaž Črnivec – guitar
Lovro Ravbar – alto saxophone
Saša Perigoj – tenor saxophone
Vid Žgajnar – trombone
Danijel Savnik – trumpet
Alen Steržaj – bass guitar
Anže “Dagi” Langus – bass guitar
Aleš Klinc – bass guitar
Production
Matej Gobec & Jakob Krall – Jacuzzy
Tracklist
1. Dej pel
2. Hočem te
3. Spolna prjatla
4. Padam dol
5. Čeveljaza
6. Se ti laže
7. Ritual
8. Bil sem nor
9. Premlad prestar
10. Kr neki
11. Kombi R’N’R
12. Božiček bi se ljubil
