Author: Urban Bolta
Artist: Zmelkoow
Label: KUD Napačen Planet
Release: 2009
Length: 69:57
Rating: 2/5
Exactly ten years after the coastal crew Zmelkoow’s massive breakthrough onto the airwaves, where the hit “Bit” played day and night, night and day, Zmelkoow have put out a new studio album called Čista Jajca?, the follow-up to 2004’s Plošča. Plošča, and before it Superheroji v akciji (2001), brought a lot of new elements into the Zmelkoow sound, from female (backing) vocals to a colorful array of new instruments and, with them, more dynamic tracks. The five-year break from studio releases raised the question of where Zmelkoow would take things with “Čista jajca?”.
With Čista jajca?, Zmelkoow follow the path of the new millennium, which, as a rule, curves steadily downward, and the new album hits the lowest point of their career. A large number of tracks and a correspondingly long runtime are usually a sign of an inexhaustible well of ideas, but you could hardly say that for Čista jajca?, since the lack of musical ideas is more than obvious. Zmelkoow try to cover up that void at all costs with Goga’s trademark lyrics, but be warned: their particular sense of humor can be too narrow a strainer for many to swallow. In that, Zmelkoow are one of a kind!
Once a hard-hitting trio with the basic setup (guitar, bass, drums), singing rebellious anthems and anchored strictly in rock waters, the band has changed over the years and has now settled into a seven-piece lineup. The bigger lineup means new instruments and, with them, more dynamics and a wider horizon for writing new songs. They’ve known how to make the most of these gains, and at just the right moments the songs get sliced up by flute or trumpet, while female vocals take an ever more important place in the Zmelkoow sound – Aleksandra, for instance, even steps in as lead vocalist on “More woman more man”. The once authentic rock style has thus become a conglomerate of sounds: there’s a whiff of pop (especially in some of the vocal lines), while the distorted guitar line more than once conjures up the smell of garage (hard) rock.
Zmelkoow aren’t staging any revolution in music, and they never have, but with their hard-hitting anthems and the messages they delivered, they won over plenty of fans. Čista jajca? will certainly not grow the fan base. All the songs are more or less stuck in the pale average of the Slovenian rock scene, and not a single one smells like a hit. The melody in their songs has vanished, and so have the choruses that, with their simple lyrics but deep message, could have stood shoulder to shoulder with Zmelkoow’s songs of the nineties. Of the band’s recognizable trademarks, all that’s left is the comical Goga lyrics about the little, random everyman, which, more often than not, get so over the top they turn absurd. Hand on heart, it’s the lyrics that save Čista jajca? from sinking into the Mariana Trench, because there’s really only a hint of truly good music here. Songs like “Je pesnik jedel mamile”, “Recept” or the decidedly overlong “Slovo režiserja” are pale shades of what Zmelkoow used to be and have no connection to quality whatsoever. The guitar riffs we’ve already heard bring nothing new to the table, and it’s a good thing the multi-instrumental sound now partly leads the listener away from the dull guitar motif that drags a song from its start to its finish. The album lacks pillars, tracks that would draw the listener in to hear the whole thing and force them to do it again sometime. Merely solid songs like “Bigass”, “More woman more man” or “Đambo” just aren’t the heralds of a new spring that would bring Zmelkoow a comeback.
Zmelkoow – Zmagovalni tim (official video):
Lineup
Goga Sedmaxi: vocals, guitar
Žare Pavletič: bass guitar
Aleš Koščak: drums
Eva & Aleksandra: backing vocals
Deki: trumpet
Anuša: flute, backing vocals
Production
Hrast Radojevič
Tracklist
1. Bigass
2. In rod gre dalje
3. More woman more man
4. Kaj bi bilo
5. Izidor
6. Je pesnik jedel mamile?
7. Partibrejker
8. Avtoštoparska
9. Đambo
10. Zmagovalni tim
11. Recept
12. Srečko
13. Knowhow
14. Moderato cantabile
15. Slovo režiserja
