Label: Sintetic Production
Release year: 2015
Production: Demolition Group
Album length: 54.08
Rating: 9.5 / 10
And here it is: the 14th album from one of the most carefully guarded secrets of the Slovenian underground. Unique welders of top-shelf rock, subtly infused with a dash of experimental excess. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you “Zlagano sonce”, brought to you by Demolition Group from Brežice. The band laid down their first original bends way back in the eighties of the last century, and today they boast a maturity and charisma that are simply unmatched. But these modest guys never make a big song and dance about it. Nobody is like them, and they aren’t even remotely like anyone else. “Zlagano sonce” is really a continuation of the story of its excellent predecessor “Planet starcev” (2011). The change in the lineup and in the album’s sound comes from a new guitarist. That role in Demolition Group now belongs to Matija Lapuh!
The 11 tracks give you a glimpse of yet another perfectly eclectic musical achievement and a trip into an attractive musical glue that keeps the band’s calling card timeless and evergreen. You don’t even know where to start describing the contents of the new record, the substance is just so tangibly strong. information.
The building blocks of the sound are exactly where they need to be. Goran Šalamon keeps up his landmark vocals, the kind that make every hair on your skin stand on end as he fights his way through an extraordinary confession of poetry with intense passion. Sparkling, always biting, yet remarkably intelligent poetry is in fact one of the main aces that put Demolition Group in a special, qualitative spot on the Slovenian rock map. “Planet starcev” attacked the destructive neoliberalism to which we are bowing down like slaves, while “Zlagano sonce” deals with the psyche of an individual who, as a prisoner of this destructive system, falls apart spiritually and emotionally. The lyrics come alive with such reality that the very same truthfulness pokes the eyes out of even the blindest of the blind, the ones who won’t, don’t want to, or are afraid to see it. Caustic, piercing, rough, disillusioned, broken, but also tender, deep and velvety. Goran is a one-of-a-kind vocal charisma! The band’s other shaman, an essential building block of the eclecticism, is Jože Pegam’s saxophone. At times it works as the band’s “second vocalist”, but its priority is reinforcing and doubling Mitja Lapuh’s guitar phrases, with the difference, of course, that Jože’s lines meander off into free-spirited fields of improvisation, without ever losing the common thread of the musically sculpted forms of the compositions. Van Der Graaf Generator and King Crimson figured out and tasted the expressive power of the saxophone as an instrument a long time ago. Demolition Group know this very well too. The sax doesn’t “shred” the songs to pieces, it amplifies, nurtures and fertilizes the feelings of black eroticism, whose main initiator is Goran.
On “Zlagano sonce”, Demolition Group serve up a new eclectic mix of blues, funk, jazz, punk and metal. All of it is brilliantly arranged in compositions that at the same time develop outstanding musicality. The album is remarkably easy to listen to. Rhythmically, everything for this band is crystal clear. The rhythm section keeps up an extremely eruptive dynamism and expressive agility (the bass lines are especially adventurous and restless), creating a colorful, contrasting “framework” that holds Matija Lapuh’s hyperplastic riffs and massive wall of sound. In the quieter moments Demolition Grioup show their fragility and vulnerability. One of those especially moving moments is the track Včasih tko, which in vibe “at first listen” fleetingly and innocently recalls the Red Hot Chili Peppers classic Under the Bridge. The album is wonderfully balanced between wrecking balls and moments of sonic tenderness and refined precision. And the emotions and passions boil and pound throughout, firing on all cylinders of the band’s sixteen-cylinder engine! The track Tesnoba strah in cvetoče polje is an example of artistic brilliance in composing and flawless placement of all the building blocks of the sound picture, showing off all five pieces (with interwoven solos on guitar and sax, rattling, rumbling bass lines and crushing drum transitions) at the peak of their musicianship. “Groove” is another name for Demolition Group!
There are no dips in quality between the tracks, and you’ll have to find your favorites yourself. The new album is fresh proof of the incredible creative freshness and evergreen creativity that sticks with the band even in their mature years and never lets up. A masterpiece and surely a contender for one of the best rock albums to come out (and still to come out) on the Slovenian music scene in 2015!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Kapital
2. Lažje je imeti psa
3. Kaplja
4. Dan brez
5. 99
6. Včasih tko
7. Slab gospodar
8. Da bi bil iskren
9. Tesnoba, strah in cvetoče polje
10. Zate ker smem
11. Zlagano sonce
12. Funkscape*
13. Metro*
*… bonus tracks
Lineup:
Goran Šalamon – vocals
Jože Pegam – saxophones
Matija Lapuh – guitar
Tomi Gregel – bass guitar
Ivica Gregel – drums
Matjaž Pegam – sound
