Label: PGP RTS
Release date: March 2017
Production: Darko Varga
Album length: 45.33 min
Genre: Progressive Rock / Blues / Art Rock / Pop
The fifth studio album from Novi Sad quintet Šinobusi, after fifteen years of defiance! It’s finally landed in the hands of a Slovenian music outlet too, even though a whole lot of water has gone down the Sava since it officially came out in March 2017. This is a band that’s a true one-of-a-kind, an incredibly authentic link to the good old days of rock pioneering. Some three and a half years after its predecessor “Nebo od skaja” came out in late 2013, here comes “Ljubav i dalje diše”. Black Sabbath once said on “Cross Purposes” that all you’re left with in the end is humanity, while Šinobusi put their faith in love as the guiding principle. The two are, of course, tightly intertwined.
Over the years Šinobusi have become a hugely respected and recognized band, and not just on home turf. The Slovenian audience has given them that recognition too. They come back to us regularly and gladly, and their high-energy gigs are a byword for flawless performance. The album kicks off with the wake-up call of U nevreme, which immediately shows just how vivid and powerful the chemistry in this band’s music is. The music Šinobusi make is by no means easy to pin down. Maybe the easiest way is to slap a broad label on it and call it a one-of-a-kind mix of blues, rock’n’roll, pop and progressive rock, with the odd genre detour of course (jazz, swing, psychedelic rock), since the band is all about constant experimenting with sound and arrangements. The quintet is always on stage and they’re plenty tight, and they’ve got no shortage of creative sharpness either.
If “Nebo od skaja” (December 2013) came across as an album of longer tracks with really lavish arrangements, “Ljubav i dalje diše” has more songs, but with the exception of the progressive-psychedelic rock-tinged Crna dirka, they’re all considerably shorter, so for the most part they hit more directly, while still carrying all the sheen of this band’s unmistakable songwriting charm. Once again there’s a bit of lucid, cheeky comedy, first given a proper hint in the blues-boogie swing of Preko polja, pa u brda, which is really a small tribute to all the wonderful people from Serbia to Slovenia who’ve backed the band over the years. The next moment of mischief comes at track number eight, where the band doesn’t hide its rascally side at all, taking on a cabaret jazz swing vibe in Dečaci. Nenad Patković, who also handles all the keyboards, can play anything on guitar. A musician who’s torn it up completely. In a good way, of course. He brings a total element of surprise to the lineup. In the sense that he pulls transitional flourishes into otherwise compactly formatted songs, ones that sound retro-nostalgic and that you wouldn’t expect on new records in the post-millennium era from musicians of his generation. That’s why Šinobusi often come across as a new story about good old blues rock’n’roll, lost in time and space. You could easily mistake them for people who came up through the ranks of rock’s pioneers, that’s how much authentic replication of old-school sound they pack into their records.
A story of its own is the expressive power of Milan Korać’s poetry. Milan is a vocalist with a voice tailor-made for singing pop music, and his vocals always “soften” the structure of the songs a little, even when the guitar riff is hitting harder, like in Začaran krug, the heaviest track on the album. Mid-eight passages, outros and intros can be slyly seasoned with a dialogue between harmonica and guitar. Šinobusi always know how to make great use of this, and it lifts the dynamics of the songs. The way the two elements make peace with each other, the way they bring out each other’s strengths, is downright wonderful, piercing and distinctive. There are two instrumentals on the album. In the first, HOP, the arrangement is built so that the harmonica reigns supreme, while in the second and closing one, Vučedolska, the attention goes to the exceptional figurations of Nenad Patković’s fine guitar mechanics, and it feels deeply nostalgic, yearning, and like the closing number of a musical for any film you like.
The keyboards occasionally lend a distant hint of psychedelia (Crna dirka, say, with its duality of keyboards and kick-drum-backed rhythm, sounds Doors-like at moments), but on the other hand, Nenad Patković’s remarkably cunning guitar playing is the element that pushes the band’s blues-based expression more toward progressive rock territory, as hinted at in the album’s title track, which has no shortage of mystique and longing either. Iz drugog života is another track where the band has once again managed to capture that mystique and melancholy in a retro engraving of the seventies rock recipe. Once again there are tricks in the harmonies of the guitar lines that recall the pioneering moves of good old Wishbone Ash from the “Argus” era. At times Šinobusi are a straight-up wild trip into seventies retro rock nostalgia. The harmonica also sounds completely uplifted in its part, holding a tangible melody over a given phrase. Everything is subordinated to building atmosphere and the expressiveness of a bare, primal feeling, with the communication among the five of them coming across as highly sensitive, tenderly sensual and instinctive.
Another superior album, then. On it, Šinobusi set themselves up for the first time in their career as an entity that worked together as one when it comes to writing the songs. The whole quintet contributed ideas, and besides Milan, who wrote most of them, Peđa and Đorđe also sign off on lyrics. “Ljubiav i dalje diše” feels more compact, more focused, more “old school pop-rock-blues”, only tighter. There are more songs, but they’re arranged with incredible subtlety. Above all, you have to keep in mind that the band has listened to a ridiculous amount of music, and has played a ridiculous number of gigs in this quintet format. On top of being excellent musicians, they’re also incredibly experienced. At the same time they’re great friends, like brothers, breathing as one. You can feel that harmony in the incredible chemistry and the 100% organic sound of the record, which was tracked analog, modeled on a live gig and recorded “in one take”. The album feels like a live show, and when Šinobusi step on stage that “organic” quality grabs you even harder, and the musical substance is even more appealing. A band you absolutely have to hear live and an album that grows on you with every spin, it sounds unique and unrepeatable, an album you can never get tired of.
Šinobusi could have pulled off a fully retro-sounding progressive rock album, but they’d rather stick to shorter, tightly arranged little tunes that pack in everything. Incredible musical appeal, the powerful poetry of Milan Korać with a devilish knack for the striking use of metaphor, just the right amount of constantly lucid dialogue among the instrumental building blocks, and above it all the incredible chemistry and mutual awareness of the quintet. Thirteen songs, then, polished to their expressive maximum. Love keeps on breathing! And may it stay that way.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 10 / 10
Tracklist:
1. U nevreme
2. Preko polja, pa u brda
3. Čudno voće
4. Ljubav i dalje diše
5. Boka
6. Začaran krug
7. Iz drugog života
8. Dečaci
9. HOP
10. Genetski modifikovana osećanja
11. Pauk tišine
12. Crna dirka
13. Vučedolska
Musicians:
Milan Korać – vocals, guitar
Nenad Patković – guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
Stefan Stefanović “Gile” – harmonica
Predrag Dmitrović – bass guitar
Đorđe Bubnjević – drums, percussion, backing vocals
