Author: Urban Bolta
Artist: Riblja Čorba
Label: City Records
Release: 2009
Duration: 50:55
Rating: 3.5/5
It’s been more than thirty years since the legendary album “Kost u grlu” came out and kicked off the story of the controversial Belgrade band Riblja Čorba in the best possible way. Over a long career, Čorba has traveled around and eyed musical directions from all sorts of angles, from their early blues/(hard) rock roots under the influence of Johnny Winter and ZZ Top, through the populist-leaning albums of the mid-eighties, to the over-the-top nationalist outbursts back when Yugoslavia was on the boil. Today Čorba are a seasoned band, oiled up with every trick in the book, and on the thirtieth anniversary of their cult debut, the beloved Serbian outfit has put out its eighteenth studio album, titled “Minut sa njom”.
The years have done their work. Bora Đorđević, the band’s lyricist and intellectual leader, has shoved his radical views into a corner, the angry words are history, and this time Bora gives free rein to sentimentality and emotional outpouring, so Riblja Čorba have made an album full of mellow ballads, while on the other side still keeping some hard rock marches. If a few years back the cover of Ovdje (2006) was “graced” by a hand with three fingers raised, maybe Bora has finally realized that the band can make music without the radical social and political themes that more than once split not just the public but reached all the way to the highest political bodies. Believe it or not, “Minut sa njom” is the first album since 1981, and the release of “Pokvarene mašte i prljavih strasti”, to steer clear of those themes almost entirely.
The opener “Radiću šta god hoču”, with its beefy guitars, deceptively hints at a heavy hard rock album, and Džindžer’s superbly engraved solo in it unintentionally recalls the eighties hard rock school of the Van Halen type. Then comes the sobering-up and a foot on the brake pedal in the form of the ballad “Gde li je ljubav”, but its more dynamic structure, with some mid-heavy guitar work, denies the typical ballad build, so the first classic ballad is actually “Bože, koliko je volim”. A textbook display of piano and guitar working together, so tightly locked in that they create a truly impressive ballad. Then comes the knockout in the form of “Krilati pegazi”: in the chorus, keyboards join the aggressive guitar and conjure up an almost heavy/power metal atmosphere. Certainly one of the heaviest tracks in Čorba’s vast catalog. This hellish-lovely rhythm carries on at the same tempo across the whole album, with hard rock-based songs and gentler rhythms alternating in almost regular order. Among the latter, “Odlazim” and the title track “Minut sa njom” definitely stand out, both again with the piano playing a major part in the overall sound. Then there’s the mighty “Orfej”, which, thanks to its energetic vocal parts and a touch more guitar heft, is really a “power” ballad. Riblja Čorba also turn to multi-part vocals on the album, but they use the effect purely to underline the message of the lyrics, not as an extra sonic layer of harmony singing in the style of some melodic hard rockers. Guitar is increasingly being replaced by keyboards (piano) in Čorba’s sound these days, and it’s fair to say that in the autumn of their career, the old guys are putting less focus on the punch of the songs and more on building their atmosphere.
The lyrics were written, as always, by Bora Đorđević, and the surprisingly high concentration of emotional melodies and moments unusual for Čorba, with Bora’s tender, softened vocals, can be read as his epitaph for his second (deceased) wife. The music was mostly written by Bora and Miša, the only two original members left, while Džindžer Božinović, who has been in Čorba since the mid-eighties when he replaced Momčilo Bajagić – Bajaga on guitar, got a little crumb in the form of the song “Uspomene”.
Compared with the not-so-convincing predecessor “Ovde”, which solidly fit in with Čorba’s work of the past decade but was far too exposed to the wind of copying their own past, “Minut sa njom” is a step forward. Maybe, because of its (musical) lightness and slight turn away from hard rock in favor of subtlety, it won’t please all the old fans, but it has to be admitted that Riblja Čorba pulled off a big move: combining heavier rhythms with “feminine” ones without crossing the upper limit of pathos. So Bora has finally found an alternative to his own muscle-flexing. Nobody could reasonably expect heavy experimentation, which makes a very solid album on home turf all the bigger an achievement for such an experienced band, worn down in the ideas department. Don’t get me wrong, the famous “Kost u grlu”, “Mrtva priroda” or any other album from the first half of the eighties remain out of reach, but with this new release Čorba proved that in the new millennium they can still throw down the gauntlet to plenty of today’s high-flying bands.
Lineup
Bora Đorđević – vocals
Miša Aleksić – bass guitar
Vidoja Džindžer Božinović – guitar
Vicko Milatović – drums
Nikola Zorić – keyboards
Guest:
Đorđe David: backing vocals on »Krilati pegazi«
Production
Milan Popović
Tracklist
1. Radiću šta god hoću
2. Gde li je ljubav
3. Bože, koliko je volim
4. Krilati pegazi
5. Odlazim
6. Minut sa njom
7. Uspomene
8. Moj jenki going hom (prokleta je Amerika)
9. Muško od plastelina
10. Orfej
11. Razmažena devojčica
12. Dan zaljubljenih
13. Ja sa zaista ne sećam
