Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Uroš Planinc Group
Label: Multi Records
Released: 2013
Runtime: 50:18
Rating: 3.5/5
Uroš Planinc is yet another wizard of instrumental playing, and his specialty is still, without a doubt, polished guitar technique, in which this precise, richly layered musician, wired to soak up musical information on many levels, carries a good chunk of the Joe Satriani school of guitar. Lately, though, also of the giants of the blues. And the new album shows exactly that.
The new album, his second, arriving three years after the debut »Uroš Planinc Group« (2010), deepens the feeling that, while Uroš absolutely stays front and center at the album’s focal points, the band as a whole plays an ever more important role in the musical expression. The impact of the group as a unit now comes close to the weight of the guitar as the elemental building block of Uroš Planinc’s musical statement, though the guitar of course remains the main carrier of it all. The sense of one unified musical body is therefore even stronger and deeper on »Alternative Ego« than on the debut. The production hints at it too: it’s alive, dynamic, warm, with the building blocks beautifully contrasted in color. The sound is active and wonderfully flexible in the way the players react to each other. You can feel the chemistry between the musicians!
»Alternative Ego« is an album where Uroš still loves to flirt with all kinds of genres, yet the center of gravity leans toward the blues. The opener Burning Fields, his own boogie blues shuffle, carries a classic blues rock template, with guitar and keyboards trading the spotlight in solo escapades. As the solo duels heat up, the track hits a crescendo on its way out. The lead motifs the improvisations rest on don’t bring a musical revolution. But the second track, Megalodon, immediately confirms that Uroš spent his school days learning the six-string vocabulary listening to Joe Satriani. A well-crafted lead motif, smartly woven into a curtain of Hammond-like keyboard sound. The song unfolds through a tasty, ear-pleasing string of sonic landscapes and moods, and counts among the album’s better compositions, the place where Uroš Planinc’s songwriting talent really sparks boldly.
The third track, Ne morem več, is an attempt to work a female vocal figure into the arrangement. In its soul-blues hairdo, the song picks up a dash of radio-friendly pop ditty. Given the strong personal imprint of Uroš Planica’s musical philosophy, which the engraving of instrumental tracks carries in rocky doses, this song at position no. 3 breaks the album’s integrity, and it would make far more sense to stick it right at the tail end!
The genre variety gets another boost with Dry Sufing next! Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the legendary The Shadows’ repertoire, or who ever spun the soundtrack to Pupl Fiction, will feel instantly at home here. A fun track, though it doesn’t offer anything unheard-of. Midnight Rain is an interesting mix of blues and classic hard rock, where Uroš superbly fuses neoclassical leanings with bluesy rhetoric in his solo escapades. A souped-up rocker!
Emotions burst out with passionate, erogenous intensity when we reach the middle of the album and the dreamy, mystically gazing blues waltz Millenium. Once again there’s a remarkable chemical dialogue between the keyboards and the sensual exposé of Uroš’s guitar playing. Melancholy! And that’s not all. In its second half the track speeds up into full-on rock, which brings it close to the message of Midnight Rain. Alone In The Club is an intimate, inward-looking, slowed-down rhythm N’ blues number, where the band lets loose over voluptuously loaded improvisations built on a blues foundation. Another track that, along with Dry Surfging and Ne morem več, really stands out on the album is the goofy country ride Southern Comfort (»Southern ease«). It’s an ode to a close flirtation with that famous sweet whiskey, whose bottles’ staying power was once, long ago, put through a thorough test by Janis Joplin on Jim Morrison’s noggin. Another track that again doesn’t offer particularly thrilling ideas in terms of songwriting insight, yet it serves an important function in lifting the album’s dynamic momentum. »Hendrixism« on the album, called Space Orgasms, is Uroš’s own little »Little Wing«, reflecting the musician’s fascination with the pioneering figure and work of the famous player of the »left-handed« Fender Stratocaster. Chain Conveyor, as the album’s closer, delivers one more hard rock instrumental onslaught, in which, just like in Megalodon, Midnight Rain and Millenium, the outstanding skill of Uroš’s guitar trickery runs riot.
The album »Alternative Ego« deepens the chemistry between the building blocks of the band. It’s an exceptionally nice, honest, and, in terms of arrangement, highly polished piece of work, on which Uroš and company deepen their musical vision of an instrumental rock quartet, one naturally commanded by his craftsman’s guitar skills. It feels organically refined compared with the admittedly very ambitious and colorful debut, and at the same time it proves that Uroš has lately fallen for the power of emotional expression that the building blocks of the blues offer, which is also a good part of what the new album has to say.
That’s exactly where the minor flaw lies. In the predictable templates of its main motifs, the crew doesn’t develop those essential traits of its own authentic songwriting charisma, which gives rise to a feeling that the album slips into genericness here and there. In that respect the debut »Uroš Planinc Group« expressed more musically interesting figures and exciting tales of experimental musical adventurism, compared with its more compact successor in terms of arrangement. The blues-schooled »Alternative Ego«.
»Aternative Ego« is a very, very nice piece of work, where the interpretation of the tracks again melts away in the effective delivery of feelings through instrumental playing, and where the band’s exceptional chemistry and tightness as a single, unified body comes across extremely well. That very observation hints that Uroš Planinc Group is a band you simply have to hear at their live shows! On the album “Alternative Ego” the band let loose, took off all the brakes and played the songs in the studio with extraordinary intensity and tightness, combining passion, explosiveness and refinement (subtlety). And that’s their winning poker hand of aces!
Line-up
Uroš Planinc – guitar
David Raček – keyboards, guitar
Jalen – keyboards
Blaž Bizjak – bass guitar
Črt Krevh – drums
Janez Lupše – bass guitar on track no. 3
Maja Založnik – vocals on track no. 3
Sara Česnik – backing vocals on track no. 3
Perry Stenback – guitar solo on track no. 7
Leon Žunec – piano solo on track no. 7
Jure Kolšek – drums
Production
Matej Pečaver
Track list
1. Burning Fields
2. Megalodon
3. Ne morem več
4. Dry Surfing
5. Midnight Rain
6. Millenium
7. Alone in the Club
8. Southern Comfort
9. Space Orgasms
10. Chain Conveyor
