Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Debeli Precjednik
Label: Moonlee Records
Released: 2012
Running time: 45:41
Rating: 4/5
»Unhinged« hardcore punk rockers Debeli precjednik from Osijek, Croatia, are back. Finally. After almost twenty years of nonchalantly shoving out hardcore punk full of mockery. With their fourth album. It took a whole six years to follow up “Through The Eyes Of The Innocent”, which got them crowned band of the year in 2007, when they took home the Zlatna koogla award. Despite a modest pile of studio releases so far, the band has a bag stuffed with live shows across Europe, sharing bills with big names like Lagwagon, Beatsteaks and Me First & Gimme Gimmes, among many others, and they’ve even hit the stage at Sziget festival. This year we can expect them in Tolmin at Punk Rock Holiday.
»Through The Eyes Of The Innocent« showed, with a new sound and a new look, that Debeli Precjednik had grown up. The move to Moonlee Records, a standalone indie label and one of the few around here that actually works in a healthy way and stays true to its mission, was an important step on that road of hardening up. On that album Debeli precjednik ditched all the naivety of their nineties-style little songs, cranked the sound up to a dangerous roar, and added extra contrast to its building blocks, turning them into a modern conglomerate of catchy, adrenaline-fueled rush, the way hardcore punk rock knows it today.
»Bruto Slavo/VBK« continues the story of the fat president in the same vein, with discipline. The band’s cheerful nature is definitely still there, along with the melodic »party time« contagiousness that sprang up in the early nineties during the skate punk boom, when the members of Debeli precjednik loved listening to bands like NOFX. But with »Bruto Slavo/VBK« Debeli precjednik present themselves more seriously than ever. They’re no longer little kids who skate around once in a while and drive their parents nuts by walking around with untied shoelaces. This is now a fully formed band with a stamp of its own and a voice that’s entirely theirs!
Musically, they’re not reinventing the wheel, they just stick to their path. There are more minor keys in the lead melodies than ever, while the main driving force remains the energetic, recognizable and highly charismatic vocals of singer Tin Kovačić. Debeli precjednik roll out track after track of polished templates, well-developed character, a perfectly balanced mix of hard-hitting sound and smart, flexible lyrics steeped in the language of defiance and rebellion, and of course there’s no shortage of personal confession and relationships between people (Against The Opposite, Kinda like Pegboy, but not that Good). The album has a lively but controlled production. Kovačić, whose vocal delivery leans on a melody of melodic melancholy and high-pitched, whiny howling, can also bare his teeth in a more than convincing, aggressive snarl, as on the excellent, red-hot hardcore shrapnel of Against the Opposite.
The band still puts a clear share of its expressive power into political engagement, sharply attacking the executioners of humanity who sell us the »proper figure of morality« (Nothing Gold, Calvary). The grim vision of the future is underlined by the excellent cover artwork, as well as by the top-notch design of the booklet itself. Planet of the Apes is the reality of those who survive the third world war. A return to the Stone Age. That’s the only future known to the virus of planetary masochism, wallowing in a tub of its own blood. The virus of self-destruction called humanity.
The six-year break produced a heap of ideas, and the album bursts with freshness and a seriously generous dose of variety within the narrowly drawn genre template Debeli precjednik work in. For everyone who has been tirelessly waiting for the band’s new album, it rewards your persistence with a bonus EP called »VBK«, featuring three songs sung in Croatian. In them, the band’s hardcore punk expression picks up some distinctive character. The melos forged in Slavonia comes through in a big way. At the same time, a track like Zaboravi proves that Debeli precjednik would have no trouble firing on all cylinders if they stuck to writing poetry in their mother tongue. That feeling is underlined by the hardcore-possessed Puška ne ubija ljude that follows, but the win goes to the closer, also released as the first single, Moja su koljena umorna od moljenja, which vividly shows off the usefulness of the juicy palette of expressions in the Croatian language.
»Bruto Slavo/VBK« is a powerful confessional document with which Debeli precjednik cement their position in the alternative rock scene forged on the Balkan peninsula, adding a new, well-measured step up to their discography landscape, one that reflects the band’s character maturing and enriching, and above all the precious experience of long live mileage. The real expressive power of the music of bands like Debeli precjednik, after all, only shows when you meet them on stage.
Line-up
Tin Kovačić – vocals
Davor Bestvina – guitar
Andrej Kolundžić – guitar
Igor Kovačević – bass guitar
Siniša Rajković – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Petar Gerstman “Gera” – guitar solo on track no. 14
Production
Filip Sertić
Tracklist
BRUTO SLAVO (album):
1. Enemies
2. Music Slaves
3. Heroes Of Today
4. Against The Opposite
5. Yougn And Angry Man
6. Bottle in the Mouth
7. Brave Souls
8. Nothing Gold
9. Calvary
10. Peter Pan Syndrome
11. One Book
12. Kinda Like Pegboy, but not that Good
VBK (EP):
13. Zaboravi
14. Puška ne ubija ljude
15. Moja su koljena umorna od moljenja
