Artist: Lene kosti
Label: Histria Cult Records
Release: 2009
Duration: 51.23
Rating: 4.5/5
Lene kosti are a band born deep in the last millennium. In a time and place that was hardly receptive to the rock challenge, the provocation that followed the trends and traditions of the West. The West and the USA had pretty much put rock music in the spotlight of the entire planet, but Lene kosti were born in Yugoslavia, a “slightly” different planet.
Lene kosti hit their creative peak between 1985 and 1987. That’s when some raw recordings, demos, came to life, put to tape by Buldožer man Borut Činč. In this period the band was also riding the strongest team spirit of creation, with the highest degree of consolidation, which made it easy to strive for the desired goal. The lineup of Milan Krušič (vocals), Giovanni Kavaš (guitar), Marc Kavaš (guitar), Dare Brenko (bass) and Iztok Perko (drums) was a first-rate oddity in the iron times of Yugoslav brotherhood and unity. The brothers Marc and Giovanni Kavaš grew up on the sounds of Status Quo, AC/DC and ZZ Top, and when a guy with freshly chiseled metal views joined the lineup, I’m talking about Milan Krušič, an interesting moment of transformation arrived for Lene kosti. The band fused elements of rock n’ roll and the iron values of boogie rock with modern approaches to riff-writing, which were relentlessly storming onto the scene everywhere on the planet, since the eighties were the era when heavy metal earned its special place on the musical map and, with the allure of its own subculture, unstoppably conquered crowds around the world.
Krušič in particular, with his modern outlook, made sure that Lene kosti morphed into something like the godfathers of heavy metal in Slovenia. They wrote their lyrics entirely in English, which nobody in Slovenia had dared to do before them. Milan Krušič brought attractive “escalations” to the band’s stage show, the kind the Western world and the USA were chock-full of, and which belonged to the obligatory, self-evident arsenal of stage spectacle. If Alice Cooper or Kiss can do it, why couldn’t Lene kosti? The worn-out jeans in the Lene kosti getup were quickly swapped for spandex, chains and studded leather.
And so Lene kosti stepped in front of the crowd with seriously provocative, fresh riffs that made for a unique musical mix, not just in the land of the late, lamented socialist homeland but on a global scale. The creative core, or rather the engine driving the band at the time, with its lines of force laid out in an M. Kavaš – M. Krušič – G. Kavaš triangle, co-created a unique combination of modern heavy metal trends stemming from the N.W.O.B.H.M. guidelines while also carrying the old-school armor of rock n’ roll. It’s fascinating to listen to the individual tracks, where the needle on the scale swings now closer to heavy metal, now back toward the traditional elements of boogie rock. But all the songs have one thing in common. A recognizable, unique destructive power that no healthy ear can miss.
So we’re talking about a singular phenomenon. A singular phenomenon that, through an unfortunate chain of circumstances, was totally misunderstood, treated as foreign, persecuted, and in the end successfully suppressed. And I’m not talking about the people who enjoyed Lene kosti live. No. In an instant, with their realness, their look of uncompromising defiance and a feeling that never lied, that these guys knew exactly what they wanted and believed in what they wanted, Lene kosti won over the crowds. The far better-known acts in Slovenia were scared of Lene kosti back then. It wasn’t rare for the band to have to fend off sneaky sabotage, whose authors were concert promoters and the lobbies of more famous names and so on… And hearing a Lene kosti song on the radio was a true miracle. You know how it goes. The lyrics were in English, even with controversial content about a landing of Eastern Bloc prostitutes on Yugoslavia, for which the band had to explain themselves many times to the law-and-order authorities of the day.
So Lene kosti were snubbed by the very state apparatus of one-mindedness and political dictate, sitting in the positions that shaped the popular radio airwaves, as well as the record industry and, consequently, the concert pulse in Slovenia. Those people laid down conditions for the guys to record an album: “You can record if you soften the sound,” or: “You can record an album, but the lyrics have to be in Slovenian.” But nobody understood, or felt, the language of this singular musical sermon, spread by the combination of the roar of one-of-a-kind riffs and Krušič’s bestial vocal delivery. So these demos, which finally got an official release for the first time 31 years after the band’s formation, mark the point Lene kosti “crawled” to before the incarnation that recorded them fell apart, heralding the band’s gradual disintegration and its end in 1992. We then waited for the resurrection of Lene kosti until October 2008.
What we can finally hold in our hands and listen to with due honor is 13 demo recordings and two bonus songs from live shows. The first bonus track, a demolition bomb built on a rolling Motorhead Overkill rhythm called Wild Life, comes from one of the band’s last shows at the club Palma (today Sub Sub) in Ljubljana in 1991. The second recording, a live version of Russian Girl, comes from a show at the VPK hall (Cvetličarna) in Ljubljana on 03.02.2009, when the reunited band opened for the legendary German heavy metallers Grave Digger. At that show the band played with original drummer Igor Kremenšek in the lineup. On both bonus tracks, the band played with Davor Kastelec on bass.
Above all of this, though, the essential stuff is the demo material. After the instrumental intro motif The Nightrider, a storm strikes from the sky as the band’s unbridled energy comes crashing down in Warrior, where Lene kosti, in the mid-eighties, presented the elements of shock in heavy metal in the most authentic way possible. And that shock is shaped by sheer power and speed and, of course, Milan Krušič’s full and unique vocal approach. This combination gives Lene kosti that key ingredient that grabs you, “bribes” you and wins the listener over in an instant. It’s the cherry on top that finally convinces you of the singular phenomenon and the charisma that co-create the spirit of the band and the faith in the cause.
Krušič brought (to the initially “friendly”) rock n’ roll energy of the band that vital dose of obscurity, defiance and arrogance. The riffs of Lene kosti thus took on a connotation of evil, even playing with the fire of the occult and being forever trapped in the paranoia of temptation that the little man is exposed to, when thoughts about the fight for survival, the fight for the affection of women, the fight for the consciousness of defiance and self-preservation flow through him, in a general wave of conformist corruption, in the realization of the self-degradation of the human era, the withering of values and of faith in love,…. Yes. This is absolute revolt. Revolt against souls sold. Sold for a handful of cash. In the expression of these raw recordings it’s not hard to feel anger, agony, fear of losing the dearest person, the temptation of staring death in the eye and, last but not least, the need for a simple, honest touch of the warmth of love at a moment when you’re lonely even when you’re left completely alone. Alone with yourself, on the blackest day of humankind, a stranger to yourself. That is the truth of all of us. A truth Lene kosti were never afraid of. That’s why it’s easy to find yourself instantly on the exact same wavelength as their magic.
The singular blend of these elements is captured especially in Emergency, Time For Love and Blind In Love, where simple but brilliant riffs come alive through the combination of Krušič’s clean vocals and screeching, skyward-wailing vocal outbursts, which, besides the conviction behind them, get an extra spice from the studio “echo” effect. That last observation further reinforces the feelings in the listener laid out at the end of the previous paragraph. Then there’s Stones Of Death, where the band’s playful side comes out and the boogie character even overshadows the “metalness”. I Got The… is an example of the ideal balance between the then-fashionable heavy metal trend (intro, chorus) and rock tradition (verse), and perhaps the best example of a song that sketches the spirit and character of the band in a few strokes.
And then there are the dangerously possessed Warriror, Time For Love, Crazy Lady, Do Or Die, Iron Dragon, Rock Power and Russian Girl, which again draw only the best from the elements of the N.W.O.B.H.M. movement and the wonder of Judas Priest. Russian Girl (interestingly) uses the very same Russian motif that the Germans U.D.O. borrowed 12 years after Lene kosti, in the song Shout It Out (album “Holy”, 1999). It’s in these songs that the unique magic of making heavy metal and the image of Lene kosti shines most intensely. Playing with full balls, superior riffs with a witty character that hit you in the head right away, well-thought-out and meticulously polished guitar solos with a character all their own, and of course the authoritative, unbridled and bestial charge of Milan Krušič’s vocal approach, whose power and charm of sheer defiance were envied by many bands of the day who couldn’t come anywhere close to boasting such confidence and radiating the energy of their own charisma, which Lene kosti pulled off without breaking a sweat.
The recordings aren’t perfect, but the energy of authenticity and charisma is so strong that nitpicking over technical details becomes downright pointless. That strong character in the way of composing and the power of playing hands the listener the real energy shot straight into the vein that they came for. They don’t need more. Lene kosti are that Slovenian phenomenon that was always completely unburdened by what someone else was offering and creating, especially a more commercially successful act. That’s why this is a band with its own identity and character. One that’s unique on a global scale. And, to be honest, we Slovenes don’t have many of those. Plenty have been overlooked, of course, but those usually, sadly, don’t count.
We can say: finally. Finally these demos have seen the light of day. They write a key chapter of Slovenian heavy metal history from the eighties, and are available to the masses for the first time. This is a historic moment that we, as Slovenes, can be immensely proud of, and it’s a part of us. As such it can keep entertaining, thrilling, inspiring and delighting us. It also reminds us that, without respect for the challenge posed by the work of the bigger rock bands on the planet, this is a document we can always proudly boast about. With this release Lene kosti finally give Slovenes and the world what we were deprived of through all those long years of waiting in uncertainty. “Demo 1985-1987” is a document of a time whose energy is timeless. With it Lene kosti finally draw a dividing line. They leave the past behind and look unburdened into the future. The reunited band is going full throttle and willing to finally give the world its all, in its full light. The time of bountiful harvest has come!
Lineup
Milan Krušič – vocals
Marc Kavaš – rhythm guitar, lead guitar
Giovanni Kavaš – rhythm guitar
Dare Brenko – bass
Iztok Perko – drums
Davor Kastelec – bass on tracks 14 and 15
Igor Kremenšek – drums on track 15
SPECIAL GUEST:
Manni Schmidt (Grave Digger) – guitar on track 15
Production
Borut Činč
Tracklist
1. The Nightrider (intro)
2. Warrior
3. Time For Love
4. Back For More
5. Crazy Lady
6. Blind In Love
7. I Got The…
8. Stones Of Death
9. Do Or Die
10. Iron Dragon
11. Emergency
12. Russian Girl
13. Rock Power
14. Wild Life (live)*
15. Russian Girl (live)*
*…. bonus tracks
